Advanced PET scans reveal that late-life depression and bipolar disorder may signal early neurodegenerative changes before dementia symptoms emerge.
Key Details
- 1Study involved 52 late-life mood disorder (LLMD) patients and 47 controls using PET imaging for tau and amyloid proteins.
- 2~50% of LLMD patients showed abnormal tau accumulation vs. 15% of controls; 29% had amyloid vs. 2% of controls.
- 3Autopsy of 208 brain cases confirmed higher tau-related pathologies in those with late-life mood symptoms.
- 4Pathological protein buildup detectable an average of 7.3 years before cognitive or motor symptoms.
- 5Study used two PET tracers to capture diverse tau and amyloid pathologies.
- 6Findings support tau-PET as a tool for early detection of neurodegenerative diseases in psychiatric populations.
Why It Matters
These findings advance the role of molecular PET imaging in diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases at the preclinical stage—especially in patients with mood disorders—enabling earlier interventions and reshaping the clinical approach to late-onset psychiatric presentations.
Source
EurekAlert
Related News
•EurekAlert
AI Model Accurately Predicts Blood Loss Risk in Liposuction
A machine learning model predicts blood loss during high-volume liposuction with 94% accuracy.
•EurekAlert
AI-Driven CT Tool Predicts Cancer Spread in Oropharyngeal Tumors
Researchers have created an AI tool that uses CT imaging to predict the spread risk of oropharyngeal cancer, offering improved treatment stratification.
•EurekAlert
AI Model PRTS Predicts Spatial Transcriptomics From H&E Histology Images
Researchers developed PRTS, a deep learning model that infers single-cell spatial transcriptomics from standard H&E-stained tissue images.