Alzheimer’s disease could be diagnosed 3.5 years earlier, thanks to a simple blood test.
A study conducted by researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College in London found a blood test that can potentially predict the risk of developing the deliberating disease years before a clinical diagnosis is made.
The study, published in the journal Brain, suggests there are parts of blood in humans that can influence the generation of neurons from neural stem cells in the brain. Called neurogenesis, this takes place in the hippocampus, the area of the brain that controls learning and memory.
In its early stages, Alzheimer’s disease affects the formation of new brain cells in the hippocampus.
The study was conducted over several years with researchers collecting blood samples and observing 56 people who had been diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), which symptoms involve a decline in memory, language or judgment, and can sometimes lead to Alzheimer’s disease.
Those diagnosed with MCI develop Alzheimer’s disease at a much higher rate than those who do not, and of the 56 participants in the study, 36 were later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Previously, researchers have only been able to study neurogenesis in Alzheimer’s sufferers post-mortem.
When the study looked at blood samples of participants in the earlier stages of developing Alzheimer’s disease, they found that the changes in neurogenesis occurred 3.5 years prior to a clinical diagnosis.
The study’s authors said the research may have found the first evidence in humans suggesting how the body’s circulatory system can effect the brain’s ability to form new cells, giving a timeline to the development of Alzheimer’s.
“In our study, we aimed to use this model to understand the process of neurogenesis and to use changes in this process to predict Alzheimer’s disease,” Professor Sandrine Thuret, the study’s lead author, said.
Thuret noted previous studies conducted on young mice showed their blood has a rejuvenating effect on the awareness of older mice by improving hippocampal neurogenesis.
“This gave us the idea of modeling the process of neurogenesis in a dish using human brain cells and human blood,” she continued. “In our study, we aimed to use this model to understand the process of neurogenesis and to use changes in this process to predict Alzheimer’s disease, and found the first evidence in humans that the body’s circulatory system can have an effect on the brain’s ability to form new cells.”
The findings could potentially allow the prediction of Alzheimer’s in a non-invasive way, as well as help to understand more of what the brain goes through during the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
