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Young Adults At Future Alzheimer's Risk Have Different Brain Activity
Led by scientists from the University of Oxford and Imperial College London, the brain imaging study has revealed that young carriers of APOE4 genetic variant show changes in their brain activity decades before any symptoms might arise.
The results clearly support the belief that the brains memory function may gradually wear itself out in those who go on to develop Alzheimers.
The study provides clues as to why certain people develop AD, paving the way towards a diagnostic test that identifies individuals at risk.
Not everyone who carries the APOE4 variant will go on to develop AD, but people who inherit one copy of the gene have up to four times the normal risk of developing the late-onset variety of the disease.
Those having two copies of the gene have around ten times the normal risk.
The studys researchers stress that most carriers of APOE4 will not go on to develop Alzheimers and carriers should not be alarmed by the studys findings.
However, the study is the first to show hyperactivity in the hippocampus of healthy young carriers and also the first to show that APOE4 carriers'' brains behave differently even at ''rest''.
For the study, the researchers used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to compare activity inside the brains of 36 volunteers, with 18 carrying at least one copy of the APOE4 gene and 18 non-carriers acting as controls.
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