Neuroimaging serves a variety of purposes in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias (ADRD) research — from measuring microscale neural activity at the subcellular level, to broad topological patterns seen across macroscale-brain networks, and everything in between. In vivo imaging provides insight into the brain’s structure, function, and molecular architecture across numerous scales of resolution; allowing examination of the morphological, functional, and pathological changes that occurs in patients across different AD stages (1 Leuzy A, Heurling K, Ashton NJ, Schöll M, Zimmer ER In vivo Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease Yale J Biol Med 2018 ;  91 (3) : 291-300 PubMed PMID: 30258316, PMCID PMC6153625, Sep.

Cliquez ici pour aller à la section Références). AD is a complex and potentially heterogenous disease, with no proven cure and no single risk factor to isolate and measure, whilst known risk factors do not fully account for the risk of developing this disease (2 Rajasekhar K, Govindaraju T Current progress, challenges and future prospects of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions in Alzheimer’s disease RSC Adv 2018 ;  8 (42) : 23780-23804 C8RA03620A  [cross-ref]

Cliquez ici pour aller à la section Références).

Since the 1990’s, technological advancements in neuroimaging have allowed us to visualise the wide organisational structure of the brain (3 Raichle ME A brief history of human brain mapping Trends in Neurosciences 2009 ;  32 (2) : 118-126 PubMed PMID: 19110322, Feb. j.tins.2008.11.001  [cross-ref]

Cliquez ici pour aller à la section Références) and later developments led to capturing information of brain ‘functionality’, as well as the visualisation and measurement of the aggregation and accumulation of AD-related pathology. Thus, in vivo brain imaging has and will continue to be an instrumental tool in clinical research, mainly in the pre-clinical disease stages, aimed at elucidating the biological complex processes and interactions underpinning the onset and progression of cognitive decline and dementia.

The growing societal burden of AD/ADRD means that there has never been a greater need, nor a better time, to use such powerful and sensitive tools to aid our understanding of this undoubtedly complex disease. It is by consolidating and reflecting on these imaging advancements and developing long-term strategies across different disciplines, that we can move closer to our goal of dementia prevention. This short commentary will outline recent developments in neuroimaging in the field of AD and dementia by first describing the historical context of AD classification and the introduction of AD imaging biomarkers, followed by some examples of significant recent developments in neuroimaging methods and technologies.