Visualizing the progression of Alzheimer's disease

A rendering of the difference between a healthy brain and one inflicted by AD. (Canada's AD Society)

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is among the most threatening illnesses facing our country (and world) today.  As such, hundreds—if not thousands—of labs world wide that are hunting science’s current $64,000 question: How can we prevent and/or cure Alzheimer’s disease? In America, the pressure to solve this puzzle mounts everyday as the Baby Boomers move closer to the common age of affliction (which is approximately 65 years old). If no safe and effective treatment is found within the next ten years, the amount of people suffering from AD will be a devastating number.

One angle scientists are pursuing is techniques for early detection of the disease. Since many of the symptoms of AD are typical to other ailments of the elderly (such as fatigue and memory loss), having a distinct marker for AD that could be detected early on in the development of the disease would greatly increase a doctor’s ability to treat and prevent further degradation into the illness.

An obstacle that has always been an obstinate boulder in the middle of this early detection path is the fact that AD cannot be truly diagnosed until the autopsy.  Proof of AD is found directly on the brain, where toxic proteins aggregate around and within the neurons.  The problem here is obvious: A doctor cannot help a patient who is already dead.

However, Cornell University professor of biomedical engineering Chris Schaffer is chasing a new lead that may allow scientists to find conclusive evidence of AD in living brains.  His approach, as taken from his website, is simple: “One way to elucidate the function of part of a system is to disrupt and break that part and observe the effect. Using molecular biology tools, this method has led to a better understanding of the genetic origins of many diseases.”  In other words, by messing around with normal systems and observing the results, we can see just how diseases are wreaking havoc with their own messing around.

In AD, recent research has shown that there is a higher incidence of tiny blood clots in the brain in mice that have been genetically altered to display symptoms of AD.  The alterations in the brain that these clots cause can be tracked by fluorescent microcopy.  By using an ultra-fast laser system, Schaffer’s team intends to inflict similar blood clots in hopes of finding a systematic set of changes in brain morphology, a finding which would that in the future AD patients can be diagnosed early with readily available means that do not include invasive surgery (or death), which would be an irrefutably wonderful advancement in the area of AD diagnosis.

While this research appears to be unpublished, Schaffer is presenting it today at the Optical Society of America annual meeting (a press release can be found here). So be on the look out in the near future for a more in depth explanation of his team’s research and plans.