Dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease and its preliminary stage can be detected by measuring so-called microRNAs in blood. Researchers from DZNE in Göttingen, together with US experts from Boston University and the Indiana University School of Medicine, report on this in the scientific journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. Their assessment is based on data from around 800 adults participating in a long-term study on Alzheimer’s. Although the method used is not yet ready for clinical routine, these findings could pave the way for better early diagnosis.
“We not only need better therapies for Alzheimer’s disease, but also new approaches to recognize the disease – and to do so at an early stage, when symptoms of dementia, such as memory disorders, do not yet occur but the disease is already developing in secrecy,” says MBExC member André Fischer, a research group leader at DZNE’s Göttingen site and a professor of epigenetics of neurodegenerative diseases at University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG). “We have found that this is feasible by measuring microRNAs in the blood. Previous results already suggested this, but now we have been able to confirm them in a large study collective. In particular, our research shows that microRNAs can be used not only to detect Alzheimer’s dementia, but also to identify individuals who are only mildly cognitively impaired but at high risk of actually developing dementia within the next two years.”
Link to the DZNE press release
Prof. Dr. André Fischer, research group leader at DZNE’s Göttingen site and professor of epigenetics of neurodegenerative diseases at the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG)
