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Review
. 2018 Nov 22;19(12):3702.
doi: 10.3390/ijms19123702.

Imaging and Molecular Mechanisms of Alzheimer's Disease: A Review

Grazia Daniela Femminella  1 , Tony Thayanandan  2 , Valeria Calsolaro  3 , Klara Komici  4 , Giuseppe Rengo  5   6 , Graziamaria Corbi  7 , Nicola Ferrara  8   9
Affiliations
Review

Imaging and Molecular Mechanisms of Alzheimer's Disease: A Review

Grazia Daniela Femminella et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia and is a significant burden for affected patients, carers, and health systems. Great advances have been made in understanding its pathophysiology, to a point that we are moving from a purely clinical diagnosis to a biological one based on the use of biomarkers. Among those, imaging biomarkers are invaluable in Alzheimer's, as they provide an in vivo window to the pathological processes occurring in Alzheimer's brain. While some imaging techniques are still under evaluation in the research setting, some have reached widespread clinical use. In this review, we provide an overview of the most commonly used imaging biomarkers in Alzheimer's disease, from molecular PET imaging to structural MRI, emphasising the concept that multimodal imaging would likely prove to be the optimal tool in the future of Alzheimer's research and clinical practice.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); positron emission tomography (PET).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Imaging biomarkers of neurodegeneration. Coronal structural MRI section (panel A) and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET (panel B) from a patient with Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Chemical structure of some PET tracers. Panel A shows amyloid PET tracers, Panel B shows Tau tracers. Microglial tracers are shown in Panel C, and 18F-FDG is shown in Panel D (structures downloaded from [135]).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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