Imaging

Known risk factors for heart disease, an individual’s genetic makeup as well as other health factors, are thought to contribute to someone’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists have put together a scoring system that uses these risk factors in midlife to calculate someone’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease dementia in the future. This is known as a CAIDE score.

The authors used data from the first batch of PREVENT participants. These participants are taking part in a study looking at midlife risk factors for Alzheimer's disease and are aged between 40 and 59. The participants were split into two groups based on their CAIDE score and each participant had an MRI scan to look at their brain at two time points, at baseline and then two years later. The researchers found that the group of participants with a CAIDE score of 7 and above showed more shrinkage in their brain after two years compared to people with a lower score.

The authors therefore were able to demonstrate that there is an association between CAIDE score and brain volume and that individuals with a higher CAIDE score in midlife are already showing signs of brain changes. It also provides evidence that using an MRI scanner to image individuals thought to be at risk every few years and measuring brain changes, or lack thereof, may be a good way to track disease progression, or how well an intervention is working.