Researchers at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2015 have revealed that brain scans, memory tests and body fluids such as saliva may hold the keys to understanding a person’s likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s, even in people who don’t yet have memory and thinking problems associated with the disease.
Out of the four studies presented at the AAIC, two studies suggest that an excess of certain proteins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) are strong predictors of Alzheimer’s, and that the accuracy of these predictions is stronger when they are considered together with other diagnostic tools, such as memory tests or MRI brain scans.
A third report suggests that new ways of creating images of inflammation in the brain with PET scans could one day be used to identify treatments that protect the brain. Finally, a small but intriguing study suggests it could be possible to detect Alzheimer’s-like changes in saliva, which is easily obtained, safe and affordable, but there is a lot of work still to be done.
Knowing that Alzheimer’s typically co-exists with certain metabolic disorders, Shraddha Sapkota, MSc, a neuroscience graduate student at the University of Alberta, Canada, and colleagues reported success at AAIC 2015 in identifying substances in saliva that differentiated among people with Alzheimer’s disease.
The researchers conducted their study using saliva samples, clinical diagnoses and cognitive data from the Victoria Longitudinal Study (VLS), a long-term, large-scale investigation of human aging. Protein analysis technology, called liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LCMS), was used to analyze the saliva samples and identify which substances were predominant in the saliva of each of the three types of individuals.
Linking that data back to each participant’s clinical diagnosis, researchers reported strong associations between certain substances and a person’s cognitive abilities. For example, higher levels of one substance in the MCI group and another in the Alzheimer’s group were observed. When these were examined in NA, higher levels of both predicted worse episodic memory performance. Another substance with higher levels in the Alzheimer’s group predicted slower speed in processing information.
“Saliva is easily obtained, safe and affordable, and has promising potential for predicting and tracking cognitive decline, but we’re in the very early stages of this work and much more research is needed,” said Sapkota. “Equally important is the possibility of using saliva to find targets for treatment to address the metabolic component of Alzheimer’s, which is still not well understood. This study brings us closer to solving that mystery.”
