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Multimodal techniques for diagnosis and prognosis of Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease affects millions of people around the world. Currently, there are no treatments that prevent or slow the disease. Like other neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer's disease is characterized by protein misfolding in the brain. This process and the associated brain damage begin years before the substantial neurodegeneration that accompanies dementia. Studies using new neuroimaging techniques and fluid biomarkers suggest that Alzheimer's disease pathology can be detected preclinically. These advances should allow the design of new clinical trials and early mechanism-based therapeutic intervention.

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Figure 1: Biomarkers and Alzheimer's disease: proposed changes in biomarkers in relation to the time course of pathological and clinical stages.
Figure 2: Imaging biomarkers.
Figure 3: Fluid biomarkers.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Cirrito and MedPIC, the art and design centre at Washington University School of Medicine, for assistance with graphic design. Work in the authors' laboratories was supported by US National Institutes of Health grants P01–AG026276, PO1–AG03991, P50AG00568125 and T32NS007205.

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Competing interests: D.M.H. is a co-founder of C2N Diagnostics, which focuses on biomarkers for neurodegenerative disease.

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Correspondence should be addressed to D.M.H. (holtzman@neuro.wustl.edu).

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Perrin, R., Fagan, A. & Holtzman, D. Multimodal techniques for diagnosis and prognosis of Alzheimer's disease. Nature 461, 916–922 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08538

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