Above: Professor Perminder Sachdev (image: University of New South Wales).
Australian researchers have made a breakthrough in the pursuit of a test to identify Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages.
A research team from the University of New South Wales School of Psychiatry, led by Professor Perminder Sachdev, recently identified a new ‘biomarker’ – in this case, a protein found in blood – that is different in patients with mild cognitive impairment.
Professor Sachdev and his team found that apolipoproteins, which transport cholesterol in the blood, were abnormal in patients with mild cognitive impairment. The findings have been published in the peer-reviewed journal, PLoS ONE.
The development of accurate methods of early diagnosis is one of the major goals of research into Alzheimer’s disease and related forms of dementia.
“Essentially, this is one step towards developing a suite of biomarkers to include a number of different proteins that will identify individuals with mild cognitive impairment who will probably go on to develop Alzheimer’s disease or dementia in the future,” Professor Sachdev said in a statement.
Evidence suggests these proteins are involved in Alzheimer’s disease and some other brain diseases, according to the professor, and it is hoped that their presence in a person’s blood may signal they are on the path to cognitive decline.
In the furture, the same apolipoproteins may also become targets of treatment or preventive healthcare measures, according to the authors.
The researchers examined the group of apolipoproteins in the blood of more than 1,000 study participants over a two-year period. About half of the group also had magnetic resonance imaging brain scans and were rated according to their cognitive impairment.
“Apolipoproteins have been of interest in Alzheimer’s disease for a number of reasons,” Professor Sachdev said.
“It is know that one variant of the gene for one type of apolipoprotein, Apo E, increases the risk of Alzheimer’s. Another of these proteins, Apo J or clusterin, has been found in the brain lesions of people with Alzheimer’s.
“We found abnormal levels of clusterin, but also some other apolipoproteins, in the blood of older individuals with memory problems, and these levels tended to predict who showed worsening of their mental functions over two years.”
