ALZHEIMERS DISEASE IMAGING: IMAGE DATA TO IDENTIFY EARLY MARKERS OF AD

关于老龄化和阿尔茨海默氏症的计划项目已经 自1980年以来一直资助，玛丽莲·阿尔伯特博士担任私人投资者。它 最初是为了研究正常衰老和阿尔茨海默氏症 (Ad)使用神经心理学和神经成像技术。 随着上一个资助期的开始，重点是 阿尔茨海默病的范围扩大到包括在 “可疑”患者；这现在代表了 研究努力。此计划项目最近进行了审查，我们 预期在与供资机构讨论的基础上， 将会被续签。计划项目的具体目标是：(1) 招募符合以下标准的大样本受试者 有问题的AD和一组对照，(2)评估 受试者在基线上进行神经心理测试、神经成像 程序(即，单光子发射断层扫描[SPECT]，磁性 磁共振成像[MRI]和功能磁共振[fMRI]，以及遗传学 测试(例如，APOE-4基因)，(3)每年跟踪参与者 确定哪些受试者会随着时间的推移患上阿尔茨海默病，(4)检查 预测认知衰退进展的指标和 AD的发展，包括在评估的领域内和跨领域。 我们的研究计划基于中心假设，即 AD的发展经历了一个漫长的轨迹，直到完全成熟 症状明显，在晚发性病例中(患者 65岁以上患上阿尔茨海默病)，疾病是由 汇聚因素。因此，即使是非常轻微的损伤也很可能 AD患者在选定的大脑区域和 因此，通过合并认知能力和大脑的测量 与这些区域相关的功能，以及对一些 增加患病风险的因素，患者最早 AD的分期可以相当准确地识别出来。这 中心假设引出了几个具体的假设 至本计划项目：

Program Project on aging and Alzheimer's disease has been continuously funded since 1980, with Dr. Marilyn Albert as the PI. It was originally designed to study normal aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD), using neuropsychological and neuroimaging techniques. With the inception of the last funding period, the emphasis on Alzheimer's disease was expanded to include early detection in "questionable" patients; this now represents the primary focus of the research efforts. This Program Project was recently reviewed and we expect, on the basis of discussions with the funding agency, that it will be renewed. The specific aims of the Program Project are: (1) to recruit a large sample of subjects who meet criteria for "questionable" AD and a group of controls, (2) to evaluate the subjects at baseline with neuropsychological testing, neuroimaging procedures (i.e., Single Photon Emission Tomography [SPECT], Magnetic Resonance Imaging [MRI], and functional MRI [fMRI], and genetic testing (e.g., APOE-4 genotype), (3) to follow participants annually to determine which subjects develop AD over time, and (4) to examine the measures that predict progression of cognitive decline and the development of AD, both within and across the domains evaluated. Our research program is based on the Central Hypothesis that the development of AD follows a lengthy trajectory before full-blown symptoms are evident and that, in late-onset cases (patients who develop AD over the age of 65), disease is the result of multiple converging factors. Thus, it is likely that even very mildly impaired AD patients have substantial pathology in selected brain regions and therefore, by merging measurement of cognitive abilities and brain function related to these regions with an assessment of some of the factors that increase risk for disease, patients in the earliest stages of AD can be identified with considerable accuracy. This Central Hypothesis leads to several specific hypotheses with respect to the present Program Project: