Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease Research Boosted by National and State Funding
It has been an elusive goal for many years, but researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine appear one step closer to an effective strategy to detect Alzheimer’s disease earlier.
Recruitment for two new clinical trials is underway — backed by new funding on both the national and state levels.
“The new National Institutes of Health grant and the Florida Department of Health grant will allow us to assess the utility of different types of novel cognitive tests for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders that were developed at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine,” said David Loewenstein, Ph.D., director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Aging (CSNA) at the Miller School.
The research aims to further validate their Cognitive Stress Test, a measure designed to detect cognitive decline in people at risk. Identifying people starting to develop subtle memory and thinking issues before they develop Alzheimer’s disease (AD) would permit earlier treatment — before major changes take place in the brain.
Because the tests “stress the cognitive system,” they allow investigators to detect signs of AD in a pre-clinical stage. “Early diagnoses become increasingly important as newer targets are developed to prevent and slow the progression of AD and related disorders,” said Dr. Loewenstein, who is also professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Miller School.
To strengthen their findings, the investigators will also look for abnormal protein deposits in the brain on PET scans — including the telltale tau and amyloid accumulation associated with AD. They also will perform MRI scans to identify any structural changes to the brain that signal neurodegeneration.
The research builds on a foundation of earlier work at the CSNA. “Our cognitive stress tests have been shown to be more sensitive to the earliest manifestations of AD than traditional neuropsychological measures,” Dr. Loewenstein said.
The approach could be particularly useful for people more likely to develop AD. The tests “highly relate to AD biomarkers in asymptomatic middle age adults with one or more parents with AD, and sensitive to early changes in older adults at high risk for the disorder.”
In the NIH-funded study, University of Miami will become the first academic medical center in the state to employ tau and amyloid scanning in older adults at risk for AD, Dr. Loewenstein said. Another first in the nation will be relating these brain biomarkers to novel cognitive stress tests in different ethnic and cultural groups. The goal is to enroll 240 older adults with and without cognitive impairment.
The trial funded by the state, in contrast, will evaluate asymptomatic middle age adults at risk because of a family history of AD. This trial will incorporate functional fMRI to detect any lack of functional connectivity within the brain. Researchers will then link the imaging findings to genetic blood markers for AD risk and performance on the Cognitive Stress Tests.
This study will include 120 adults 35 to 59 years old. Half of this group will have a parent with a clinical diagnosis of AD.
“We are in the process of launching these two investigations,” Dr. Loewenstein said.
To learn more or to refer a potential candidate to one of these trials, please contact [email protected] or [email protected].