Alzheimer’s may leave a mark on the brain long before plaques appear — SkimNews
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- University of Oslo researchers identified structural brain changes on MRI at least seven years before amyloid plaques became visible on PET scans in cognitively healthy older adults, according to the study published in Nature Neuroscience.
- James Michael Roe, the study's lead researcher (now International Scientific Lead at Cercare Medical), said the team found "the earliest signal detected on brain scans to date," potentially useful for tracking the disease before symptoms emerge.
- Anders Martin Fjell, head of the Center for Lifespan Changes in Brain and Cognition at Oslo's Department of Psychology, said the finding is groundbreaking because the participants were cognitively well-functioning when the pre-plaque structural changes were observed.
- The researchers followed healthy individuals with regular MRI scans for nearly 20 years, then looked back to compare brain structure changes between participants who later developed plaques and those who did not.
- Fjell outlined two possible explanations: harmful processes may already be active even when plaques aren't yet visible, or other biological mechanisms may drive brain changes before amyloid accumulation begins at all.
- If the second explanation holds, Fjell said, it argues for continued development of Alzheimer's drugs targeting processes beyond amyloid plaque accumulation — though he noted more research is needed.
Why it matters: By tracking healthy adults for nearly 20 years, the Oslo team showed MRI can detect cortical thinning at least 7 years before amyloid-PET picks up plaques — meaning the current gold-standard Alzheimer's scan may be blind to the disease's true starting point. For drug developers, the finding reinforces the push to fund non-amyloid targets before patients ever show cognitive symptoms.
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