UNITED KINGDOM — Scientists have developed a blood-based test that could be used to predict the risk of Alzheimer’s disease up to 3.5 years before clinical diagnosis, a new study suggests.
The new research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London has established a blood-based test that could predict the risk of the condition.
The study, which was published in the journal Brain, backs up the idea that components in human blood can influence the formation of new brain cells, a process known as neurogenesis.
Neurogenesis occurs in the hippocampus, a critical part of the brain involved in learning and memory.
While Alzheimer’s disease affects the formation of new brain cells in the hippocampus in the early stages, previous studies could only study neurogenesis in its later stages through autopsies.
To better understand the early changes, researchers collected blood samples from 56 people with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), a condition in which someone’s memory or cognitive ability begins to deteriorate.
While not everyone who has MCI develops Alzheimer’s disease, those who have the condition progress to a diagnosis at a much higher rate than the general population.
Of the 56 participants in the study, 36 were later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
“In our study, we treated brain cells with blood taken from people with MCI, exploring how those cells changed in response to blood as Alzheimer’s disease progressed,” said Aleksandra Maruszak, one of the study’s joint first authors from King’s College London.
Several important discoveries were made by the researchers while studying how blood affected brain cells.
Blood samples collected over time from participants who later deteriorated and developed Alzheimer’s disease promoted a decrease in cell growth and division and an increase in apoptotic cell death — the process by which cells are programmed to die.
The researchers did note, however, that these samples increased the conversion of immature brain cells to hippocampal neurons.
While the underlying causes of the increased neurogenesis are unknown, the researchers hypothesize that it may be an early compensatory mechanism for the neurodegeneration or loss of brain cells seen in Alzheimer’s disease patients.
“Previous studies have shown that blood from young mice can have a rejuvenating effect on the cognition of older mice by improving hippocampal neurogenesis,” said Professor Sandrine Thuret, the study’s lead author from King’s College London.
“This gave us the idea of modeling the process of neurogenesis in a dish using human brain cells and human blood,” Thuret said.
The researchers aim to use this model to better understand the process of neurogenesis and to predict Alzheimer’s disease based on changes in this process.
They discovered the first evidence in humans that the circulatory system can influence the brain’s ability to form new cells.
When the researchers used only blood samples collected the furthest away from when the participants were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, they discovered that neurogenesis changes occurred 3.5 years before a clinical diagnosis.
“Our findings are extremely important, potentially allowing us to predict onset of Alzheimer’s early in a non-invasive fashion,” said Edina Silajdzic, the study’s joint first author said.
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