LONDON, Apr 9, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- British researchers suggest brain
activity already present in young people may be associated later with
Alzheimer's disease.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may
be a step towards a diagnostic test to identify individuals at risk for
Alzheimer's.
The Oxford University and Imperial College London researchers used functional
magnetic resonance imaging to compare activity inside the brains of 36
volunteers aged between 20 and 35 years -- 18 carrying at least one copy of the
gene APOE4 associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's and 18 non-carriers
acting as controls.
Comparing how the volunteers' brains behaved while they were performing a
memory-related task and while resting, the researchers could see that carriers
and non-carriers each had distinct patterns of brain activity.
"We were surprised to see that even when the volunteers carrying APOE4 weren't
being asked to do anything, you could see the memory part of the brain working
harder than it was in the other volunteers," study lead author Dr Clare Mackay
of Oxford says in statement.
"Not all APOE4 carriers go on to develop Alzheimer's, but it would make sense if
in some people, the memory part of the brain effectively becomes exhausted from
overwork and this contributes to the disease."
URL: www.upi.com
Copyright 2009 by United Press International