New brain scan can help predict Alzheimer's years in advance

Now deadly Alzheimer's can be predicted years in advance with help of a simple brain scan.

US experiments have found that quick and cheap routine imaging scans can reveal analysis of cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord, which can then be used to confirm whether a patient is likely to get Alzheimer's in the future, the Daily Express reported.

Professor Anne Fagan said though it was too early to definitively predict if a person would suffer from the cruel disease, they were working towards the goal in the hopes to treat people years before memory loss and other cognitive problems become apparent.

Neurologist Professor Fagan and her team at the University of Washington in St Louis used scan test results to reveal brain changes and biomarkers associated with Alzheimer's occurring during middle age.

The breakthrough in identifying the biomarkers most closely associated with development of the disease years later comes from data harvested over a decade from 169 healthy participants aged between 45 and 75.

The study, which is the first to find demonstrate how they can be shown to change in middle age, is published in the journal Neurology.