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Dementia usually affects people over 65 years of age and can lead to symptoms such as memory loss, mental acuity, rapidity and difficulty in performing daily activities. The four main types are Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia, and Lewy body dementia. There is currently no cure for dementia, but researchers have discovered in the blood a protein that can "very accurately" predict a degenerative brain disease long before signs of memory loss occur.
They hope that the blood test will help diagnose dementia earlier and therefore contribute to faster intervention of the devastating disease.
This discovery could systematically detect degenerative brain diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis, in clinics over the next few years.
An international team of neurologists discovered that a patient's memory loss rate was detected by the increase of a structural protein that infiltrated into their bloodstream after cell death of the brain.
Increases in "light chains of neurofilaments" corresponded precisely to the rate at which the precuneus – a part of the brain involved in memory – was thinned and narrowed.
Previous studies have shown that levels of the protein structure in the cerebrospinal fluid are a good predictor of dementia, but that this requires invasive operations of the spine.
Neurologists from the Medical School of the University of Washington and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases of Germany said that only a blood test was needed after discovering that the cell remains were "surprisingly resistant" to the degradation.
Their findings were based on years of brain badysis of 405 people with genes responsible for the development of Alzheimer's disease as early as the age of 30, according to the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer's Network & # 39 Network.
Prof. Mathias Jucker, senior author at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Tübingen, Germany, said: "The test accurately shows the course of the disease and is therefore a powerful instrument for studying new therapies for Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's in the context of clinical trials.
"We were able to predict brain loss and cognitive changes two years later.
"The fact that there is still no effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease is in part due to the fact that current treatments start far too late."
He said his team found that changes in protein concentration in the blood reflected neuron damage "very precisely".
He added: "It is not the absolute concentration of neurofilaments, but its temporal evolution, which makes sense and makes it possible to predict the future progression of the disease.
"It will be important to confirm our findings regarding late-onset Alzheimer's disease and to define the period of time during which neurofilament changes should be evaluated in order to achieve optimal clinical predictability." . "
The researchers hope that the test will be adapted as a harbinger of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders within a few years.
The protein also spreads to the blood via the spinal cord in people with Lewy body dementia and Huntington's disease, and increases dramatically in people with multiple sclerosis during a push and in football players immediately after a blow to the head.
The researchers used a blood test kit similar to other commercially available but not yet approved by the US Food and Drug Administration's experts.
Assistant Professor Brian Gordon, author of the study at the Mallinckrodt Radiology Institute at the University of Washington, St. Louis, USA, said, "This is something that would be easy to do. incorporate into a screening test at a neurology clinic.
"We have validated it in people with Alzheimer's disease because we know that their brains undergo a lot of neurodegeneration, but this marker is not specific to Alzheimer's disease .
"High levels could be a sign of many neurological diseases and injuries."
His team is now working to determine the amount of protein in the blood, and how fast protein levels can increase before becoming a source of concern for creating the clinical test.
Professor Gordon said, "I could see that this technique would be used at the clinic in a few years to identify the signs of brain injury in some patients.
"We are not at the point where we can tell people," In five years, you will suffer from dementia. "We are all working in this direction."
Co-author Stephanie Schultz, a graduate of the University of Washington, added, "Sixteen years before symptoms begin, it's really early in the disease process, but we've seen differences even then.
"This could be a good preclinical biomarker to identify those who will develop clinical symptoms."
The results were published in Nature Medicine.
A study published last week found that people with specific physical appearance were at increased risk of developing dementia.
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