New Yale imaging scans reveal culprit for cognitive decline in Alzheimer's

For years, scientists have believed that the loss of connections between brain cells leads to Alzheimer's-related symptoms, including memory loss, but actual evidence for the role of synaptic loss has been limited to a small number of studies performed on patients with moderate or advanced disease.

New glycoprotein 2A (SV2A) PET imaging scans have allowed scientists to measure metabolic activity at synapses in the brains of 45 patients diagnosed with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease

They found that the loss of synapses, or connections between brain cells, was strongly associated with poor performance on cognitive tests

Christopher van Dyck, professor of psychiatry, neurology and neuroscience at the Yale School of Medicine and director of the Yale Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, said, Yale researchers can now track the loss of synapses in patients to better understand the development of cognitive decline in individuals

"These findings help us understand the neurobiology of the disease and could be an important new biomarker to test the efficacy of new Alzheimer's drugs," said assistant professor of psychiatry and principal of the paper Author Adam Mecca said

Adam P.