LONDON (Dispatches) -- A new study supports the idea that a blood test can be used to predict the risk of Alzheimer’s disease up to 3.5 years before clinical diagnosis.
Researchers from institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London treated brain cells with blood taken from people with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), exploring how those cells changed in response to blood as Alzheimer’s disease progressed.
They found that the blood samples collected from participants over the years who subsequently deterioratedand developed Alzheimer’s disease promoted a decrease in cell growth and division and an increase in apoptotic cell death (the process by which cells are programmed to die). However, the researchers noted that these samples also increased the conversion of immature brain cells to hippocampal neurons.
When the researchers used only the blood samples collected furthest away from when the participants were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, they found that the changes in neurogenesis occurred 3.5 years prior to a clinical diagnosis.
The researchers say that these findings could present an opportunity to further understand the changes the brain goes through at the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease.