Advances in MRI in diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer&#x02019;s disease

ZHAO Jiangmin; ZHAN Qing

doi:10.12022/jnnr.2016-0015

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Journal of Neurology and Neurorehabilitation ›› 2016, Vol. 12 ›› Issue (1) : 47-51. DOI: 10.12022/jnnr.2016-0015

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Advances in MRI in diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease

ZHAO Jiangmin¹, ZHAN Qing²

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Abstract

With the aging of global population, the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) shows a significant upward trend. So far, there is still a lack of effective treatment for AD, and diagnosis, prevention and treatment in early stage of AD is the only effective way to delay the progression of AD. Currently, the diagnosis of AD still mainly relies on the exclusive method and clinical neuropsychological scales with poor repeatability and being absent of objective evidence, lacking sensitive and accurate methods for early diagnosis of AD. With the development of medical imaging technology, "medical imaging⁺" transdisciplinary research has become the new norm, the interdisciplinary neuroimaging techniques can clearly show the finer structures and lesions in the brain, which provides a basis for the early diagnosis of AD. Due to the loss of neurons in brain tissues of patients with AD, cerebral atrophy is developed, so the AD can be observed by measuring the degree of cerebral atrophy. This paper summarizes the research progress in measurement of hippocampal volume, entorhinal cortex thickness and the change of amygdale through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the application of double inversion recovery (DIR) sequence in diagnosis of AD, and the role of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in the assessment of injury in white matter related to hippocampus.

Key words

Alzheimer disease / Early diagnosis / Magnetic resonance imaging

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ZHAO Jiangmin, ZHAN Qing. Advances in MRI in diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease[J]. Journal of Neurology and Neurorehabilitation. 2016, 12(1): 47-51 https://doi.org/10.12022/jnnr.2016-0015

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Funding

Key Project of Scientific & Technological Innovation Action Program Supported by Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (No. 10411953400); Research Project Supported by Baoshan District Association for Science & Technology, Shanghai (No. 14-E-4); Medical Guidance Project of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (No. 114119a5800)