A new way of scanning the brain could allow doctors to diagnose the most common form of dementia earlier when treatments could be more beneficial.
Experts says diagnosing Alzheimer's disease is not easy because early abnormalities, such as the emergence of protein plaques, are similar to normal ageing.
Patients diagnosed with symptoms are most likely already in the middle or late stage of the disease.
The brain uses lots of energy when it working efficiently and a strong indicator of the disease is the low ability of brain cells to use glucose.
Levels are normally checked using PET scans (positron emission topography) but it is expensive and involves radiation so patients cannot be scanned too frequently.
A recently developed method, called Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (CEST), can image brain glucose using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which is more widely available and has no radiation exposure risk to patients.
READ MORE: Music should be 'formal part' of dementia care amid growing evidence of benefit
The University of Aberdeen team will study, for the first time, if CEST can detect differences in glucose concentration between patients with Alzheimer’s disease and volunteers without symptoms of similar age.
The technique has been used in the detection of brain tumours.
"Diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease is really difficult, "said Dr Gordon Waiter, Director of the Aberdeen Biomedical Imaging Centre at the University of Aberdeen.
"Most available treatments aim at controlling symptoms at early stage rather than providing a cure. Therefore, early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease is important
"Your brain uses lots of energy when it is working and that comes in the form of glucose.
"Unfortunately of the markers of Alzheimer's Disease is that parts of the brain don't work as well as they did before and they use less glucose.
"What we are hoping to see in the scan are areas of the brain where there is less glucose uptake in people with Alzheimer's Disease compared to people without Alzheimer's Disease.
READ MORE: Rugby and Motor Neurone Disease 15-fold risk prompts call to reduce match play
"We are hoping that MRI, which has no radiation and is much more widely available give us a more widely available solution.
"The main advantage would be earlier detection we hope."
Research shows that in 2019 there were over 850,000 people with dementia in the UK – which represents 1 in every 14 of the population aged 65 years and over. In 2040 it is forecast there will be over 1.5 million people with dementia in the UK.
Recent findings have shown that abnormal clearance of waste in the glymphatic system - the lymphatic system in the brain - is one of the hallmarks of early Alzheimer's disease.
The glymphatic system is a drainage-like system for cerebrospinal fluid to flow through the brain tissue called brain parenchyma, thus facilitating efficient clearance of solutes such as glucose and protein waste from the brain.
CEST has already been used in trials on mice by scientists from the USA, Sweden and Hong Kong which found that glucose uptake was lower in the mice with Alzheimer's Disease.
Dr Waiter said: "Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer is a promising new method for diagnosing this disease and this important study will give us more information about its effectiveness as a diagnostic tool.
The study, which is funded by the Chief Scientist Office (CSO), is now preparing to recruit participants.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here