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Single Brain Scan Can Diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease Quickly; 98% Accurate

400 patients signed up for the initial test. Ask your doctor when the Imperial College Alzheimer's test will be available.

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON – A new machine learning algorithm can diagnose Alzheimer’s disease from a single MRI brain scan, using a standard MRI machine available in most hospitals.

New research breakthrough uses machine learning technology to look at structural features within the brain, including in regions not previously associated with Alzheimer’s.

The advantage of the technique is its simplicity and the fact that it can identify the disease at an early stage when it can be very difficult to diagnose.

Although there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, getting a diagnosis quickly at an early stage helps patients. It allows them to access help and support, get treatment to manage their symptoms and plan for the future.

Being able to accurately identify patients at an early stage of the disease will also help researchers to understand the brain changes that trigger the disease, and support development and trials of new treatments.

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The research was published June 20, 2022 in the Nature Portfolio Journal, Communications Medicine, and funded through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Imperial Biomedical Research Centre.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting over half a million people in the UK. Although most people with Alzheimer’s disease develop it after the age of 65, people under this age can develop it too.

The most frequent symptoms of dementia are memory loss and difficulties with thinking, problem solving and language.

Doctors currently use a raft of tests to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, including memory and cognitive tests and brain scans.

The scans are used to check for protein deposits in the brain and shrinkage of the hippocampus, the area of the brain linked to memory. All of these tests can take several weeks, both to arrange and to process.

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The new approach requires just one of these – a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scan taken on a standard 1.5 Tesla machine … READ MORE.

 

 

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