IMAGE: Astrocytes in the brain of a deceased patient with Alzheimer’s disease. (Right) The black arrows show astrocytes surrounding amyloid plaques in the brain of a deceased patient with Alzheimer’s disease….
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Credit: Amit Kumar.
New biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease are a priority area for researchers seeking to learn more about the disease and find possible methods of early diagnosis. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have now studied a new PET tracer that is an important diagnostic tool for the disease. The study on the tracer substance BU99008, which is published in Molecular Psychiatry, can play a key part in the early identification of signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting almost 47 million people around the world, according to Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) – a figure that is expected to rise with increasing life expectancies.
The disease is as yet incurable, and causes considerable suffering for both patients and their families.
Alzheimer’s is an insidious disease, with the changes in brain function onsetting 10 to 20 years before the clinically cognitive decline. It is therefore important to identify early disease markers.
One such marker is reactive astrogliosis, which provide early and rapid response to the progression of the disease. Astrocytes are the most important homeostatic cells in the central nervous system (CNS),…
