NEUROIMAGING IN NEURODEGENERATIVE DEMENTIAS

This brief review presents the role of neuroimaging, both structural and functional, indementia diagnosis and monitoring with emphasis on recent developments in positronemission tomography imaging of dementia-related pathology. Neurodegenerative dementias (with Alzheimer disease as the most prominent representative) affect a large proportion of elderly population worldwide. Structural neuroimaging, either computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imagining, is routinely used to exclude non-neurodegenerative and potentially treatable dementia causes. Global or localized brain atrophy isthe most frequent morphological findings in the majority of neurodegenerative dementiatypes, regardless of the cause. Functional neuroimaging detects changes in brain activitybefore first detectable structural changes can be observed. Traditional applications ofpositron emission tomography in dementia (brain perfusion and metabolism quantification) have recently been joined by experimental imaging of brain amyloid deposition using several new imaging probes. In vivo imaging of dementia-related pathology showspotential for early disease detection, progression monitoring and in research of treatmentstrategies.