了解老年痴呆症早期损害程度的最新成像工具

了解老年痴呆症早期损害程度的最新成像工具

New imaging technology allows scientists to see the widespread loss of brain synapses in early stages of Alzheimer's disease, a finding that one day may help aid in drug development, according to a new Yale University study.

耶鲁大学的一项最新研究表明，新的成像技术使科学家能够看到阿尔茨海默病早期大脑突触的广泛缺失，这一发现有一天可能有助于药物开发。

The research, published May 13 in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, compared the density of synapses, which transmit signals between neighboring brain cells, in people with early stages of Alzheimer's with those of people who have no evidence of the disease. As expected, the loss of synapses in those with an early stage of Alzheimer's was particularly high in areas surrounding the hippocampus, an area of the brain crucial to formation of memory, the scientists report.

这项研究发表在5月13日的《阿尔茨海默氏症与痴呆症:阿尔茨海默氏症协会杂志》(Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of The Alzheimer's Association)上。研究比较了患有阿尔茨海默氏症早期患者和没有患病证据的患者的突触密度。科学家们报告说，正如预期的那样，早期阿尔茨海默氏症患者的海马体周围的突触损失尤其严重。海马体是大脑中对记忆形成至关重要的区域。

"However, our new methods enable us to detect widespread synaptic losses thoughout the brain," said Yale's Adam Mecca, assistant professor of psychiatry and first author of the paper. "This gives us confidence that we may use these results as a biomarker outcome for therapeutic trials, which could help speed development of new drugs to combat the disease."

耶鲁大学精神病学助理教授、论文第一作者亚当·麦加说：“然而，我们的新方法使我们能够检测出大脑中广泛存在的突触丢失。这给了我们信心，我们可以将这些结果作为治疗试验的生物标记物，这将有助于加快开发新的药物来对抗这种疾病。”

To get a clearer picture of the early effects of Alzheimer's, the researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of a protein found in almost all brain synapses. Previous imaging technologies had been able to show in broad strokes the loss of brain tissue or reduced brain metabolism in Alzheimer's. However, the new PET scans show the distribution of synaptic damage, a more specific disease pathology present at early stages of the disease, the authors say.

为了更清楚地了解阿尔茨海默氏症的早期影响，研究人员使用正电子发射断层，扫描(PET)对几乎所有脑突触中的一种蛋白质进行成像。先前的成像技术已经能够在大范围的中风中显示阿尔茨海默氏症患者脑组织的丧失或脑代谢的减少。然而，作者说，新的PET扫描显示了突触损伤的分布，这是一种在疾病早期出现的更为特殊的疾病病理学。

"These methods will allow us to examine synaptic loss at still earlier stages of disease -- when people have evidence of Alzheimer's pathogenesis but have not yet manifested symptoms," said Christopher van Dyck, professor of psychiatry, neurology, and neuroscience, and senior author of the study.

精神病学、神经病学和神经科学教授、该研究的资深作者克里斯托弗·范·戴克说：“这些方法将使我们能够在疾病的早期阶段——当人们有阿尔茨海默病发病的证据，但还没有表现出症状时——检查突触的丢失。”。

The Yale team recently received a grant to conduct more synaptic imaging and relate synaptic loss to other disease markers for Alzheimer's, including amyloid and tau accumulation.

耶鲁大学的研究小组最近获得了一笔拨款，用于进行更多的突触成像，并将突触缺失与阿尔茨海默病的其他疾病标记物联系起来，包括淀粉样蛋白和tau蛋白的积聚。