Researchers from The Karolinska Institute, Sweden, revealed in the medical journal Brain that it was found, for the first time, through an Alzheimer's disease patient who was detected to have amyloids while conducting PET scans on his brain regularly as his disease progressed, and then his brain was analyzed after he died. The researchers said that the study gave important data on the pathological course of Alzheimer's disease.
Alzheimer's disease, which also known as SDAT (Senile Dementia of the Alzheimer Type), is a serious neurologic brain disease that results in irreversible loss of neurons and intellectual abilities such as reasoning and memory. Brain cells die due to the developed plaques in the structure of the brain during the course of the disease. "The method of forming the plaques in the brain and whether they are the main reason of Alzheimer's are still unknown" the authors explained.
The first ever PET scan of amyloid plaque on a living patient took place by Professor Agneta Nordberg at the Karolinska Institute in 2002, with using 11C-PIB which is an amyloid-binding compound. This patient had Alzheimer's disease; he was 56 years old at that time. His disease developing was tracked with periodic PET scans and memory tests, and then after he died neurochemical and pathological analyses of his brain tissue was performed.
The resulted data gave details about the development of Alzheimer's. High concentrations of amyloid plaques were noticed after the patient had experienced only slight memory loss. With PET scans, it was clear that the patient's metabolism declined with time and this occurred parallel to his rate of memory loss. It was believed by the scientists that inflammation in parts of the brain of a patient with Alzheimer's could have a different reason and occur at different times from the accumulation of amyloid. The parts of the brain with low levels of plaques showed inflammations.
More than 1000 person had PET scans to review their amyloid concentrations in their brains. A PIB-PET early clinical diagnostic biomarker for discovering Alzheimer's disease was recommended by the American Alzheimer's Association in its latest diagnostic guidelines. Researchers said that in order to understand the importance of the PET scans completely; after the patient has died there should be examination of brain tissue.
