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PET’s Targeted Imaging may Lead to Early Diagnosis of Dementia
Dementia is a general term for a progressive brain dysfunction that results in the loss of memory and other intellectual abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life.
"Previously, scientists have been able to look only at the surface of the brain to differentiate various types of dementia," said Lisa Mosconi, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine.
"With FDG PET, we were able to develop standardized disease-specific patterns from which we could correctly classify dementia more than 94 percent of the time,” she added.
The study which 548 subjects measured the cerebral metabolic rate of glucose (CMRglc), the amount of sugar the brain uses to fuel its activities, in various areas of the organ.
A decrease in this rate is indicative of a loss of nerve cells and of dysfunction associated with dementia. Because FDG behaves like glucose when injected into the body, its location in the PET scans pinpointed the specific area where glucose utilization had fallen below normal levels as compared to an age-appropriate control group.
"Each type of dementia examined—Alzheimer's disease (AD), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB)—affects a different area of the brain. Based on where in the brain this decrease occurred, we were able to determine which type of dementia a patient had," Mosconi said.
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