Mayo Clinic scientists have developed a novel method to predict Alzheimer’s disease risk up to decades before symptoms appear, using brain scans and genetic data to estimate a person’s 10-year and lifetime risk of developing cognitive decline. This breakthrough, published in The Lancet Neurology, may change how the disease is detected and treated in the future.
The research, led by Dr. Clifford Jack Jr., a radiologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, draws on decades of data from the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, a long-running effort that tracks thousands of residents over time. The team analyzed brain scans, genetics, and medical records from over 5,800 adults to build a model that predicts both a person’s 10-year and lifetime risk of developing cognitive decline.
Two key proteins, amyloid and tau, begin building up in the brain long before memory problems or confusion appear. Amyloid forms sticky plaques, while tau forms tangles inside brain cells, disrupting communication between neurons and eventually leading to memory loss and cognitive problems associated with Alzheimer’s, according to multiple sources.
Using specialized brain imaging, the researchers were able to gauge the