Early detection of Alzheimer’s Disease

Key Researchers: Robert Stern, BUMC; Tony Fantana, MGH; Brent Forester, Mclean; David Harper, Mclean; James Ellison, David Boas, BU; Meryem Ayşe Yücel, BU/MGH

Summary: Early detection of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is key to preventing, slowing and stopping the disease. Unfortunately, inexpensive and practical screening tests currently used are not sensitive or specific to the actual changes in brain physiology. Positron emission tomography (PET) amyloid imaging and cerebrospinal fluid protein analysis are optimal biomarkers for detecting underlying AD neuropathology, but are expensive and invasive, and may not be early enough biomarkers. There is much need for a non-invasive, inexpensive, easily accessible screening test that can reliably and accurately detect early brain changes associated with AD. Project aims to use fNIRS, in conjunction with a battery of cognitive stress tests as a screening tool to identify subjects in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease by measuring the compensatory mechanisms in the brain. Our approach that combines optical measurements with cognitive tasks, if successful, will introduce a non-invasive, inexpensive and easily accessible tool for researchers and primary care physicians for identifying early stages of AD.

Publications: Jahani et al., Scientific Reports, 2017. PMID: 28842618

Funding: NIH grant P41EB015896