| Many elderly individuals are anxious to develop dementia. Currently, we are unable to predict who will develop dementia, and a diagnosis is made rather late in the disease process. For purposes of care and potential future treatments, one would like to intervene as early as possible in the disease. With brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, persons with high risk of Alzheimer s disease can be partly detected, but a single MRI scan is not sufficient as a good prediction tool. In this study I am going to investigate whether a more advanced MRI technique is able to more accurately predict Alzheimer s disease. With this technique, named diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), we are not only able to visualize the brain in general but also whether brain structures are microscopically intact. In a large population study of elderly without dementia, DTI scans have been made and we follow them to see who develops dementia. In this way we may be able to already detect changes on a DTI scan suspect of dementia in a phase when persons have clinically no dementia. |
