New York University School of Medicine researchers have developed a brain scan-based computer program that quickly and accurately measures metabolic activity in a key region of the brain affected in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Applying the program, they demonstrated that reductions in brain metabolism in healthy individuals were associated with the later development of the memory robbing disease, according to a new study.
“This is the first demonstration that reduced metabolic activity in the hippocampus may be used to help predict future Alzheimer’s disease,” says Lisa Mosconi, Ph.D., a research scientist in the Department of Psychiatry, who developed the computer program and led the new study. “Although our findings need to be replicated in other studies,” she says, “our technique offers the possibility that we will be able to screen for Alzheimer’s in individuals who aren’t cognitively impaired.”
Dr. Mosconi and colleagues have recently published the technical details of the program, called “HipMask,” in the June 2005 issue of the journal Neurology. She presented the new findings at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Prevention of Dementia held in Washington in mid June.
The computer program is an image analysis technique that allows researchers to standardize and computer automate the sampling of PET brain scans. The NYU researchers hope the technique will enable doctors to measure the metabolic rate of the hippocampus and detect below-normal metabolic activity.
The technique grew out of years of research by Mony de Leon, Ed.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Center for Brain Health of the Silberstein Institute. His group was the first to demonstrate with CT and later with MRI scans that the hippocampus, a sea-horse shaped area of the brain associated with memory and learning, diminishes in size as Alzheimer’s disease progresses from mild cognitive impairment to full-blown dementia.
Yet until now there has been no reliable way to accurately and quickly measure the hippocampal area of the brain on a PET scan. The hippocampus is small and its size and shape are affected greatly in individuals with Alzheimer’s, making it difficult to sample this region. HipMask is a sampling technique that uses MRI to anatomically probe the PET scan.
