Brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia often begin years before any clear signs appear. By the time someone starts forgetting things or acting differently, the brain has usually already gone through many changes.
This delay makes it hard to diagnose these diseases early, and that’s a big problem. Early detection could mean better treatment, more time to plan, and maybe even a way to slow the disease down.
Now, a group of researchers in Japan may have found a new and easier way to spot these diseases early—before major damage is done. The scientists, from the University of Tsukuba, studied how parts of the brain connect and talk to each other.
They discovered certain patterns that could help tell the difference between two common types of brain disease: Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia.
The team’s findings were published in the journal Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders. Their work offers a promising new path forward in the search for earlier and more accurate diagnoses.
Many people with early-stage brain disease show mild memory problems. But these symptoms can be caused by different conditions, and it’s hard for doctors to tell which disease a person might have based on memory problems alone.
Alzheimer’s and Lewy body dementia, for example, both cause forgetfulness, but they affect the brain in different ways and may require different treatments.
In the past, scientists have looked for changes in the brain’s gray matter—the part of the brain that helps with thinking and memory. But finding those changes often requires expensive or advanced imaging tools that many hospitals don’t have.
That’s why the researchers at Tsukuba wanted to find something that could be spotted using a regular MRI scan, which is widely available.
They focused on something called brain networks. Think of the brain as a big city, with different neighborhoods connected by roads. These connections allow parts of the brain to “talk” to each other. The researchers studied how these connections change in people with early Alzheimer’s or Lewy body dementia.
What they found surprised them. People with Alzheimer’s had unusual connection patterns in one part of the brain, while those with Lewy body dementia had different network changes in other areas. Healthy people didn’t show these patterns at all. These changes in brain networks appeared before any major loss of gray matter, which means they could act as an early warning sign.
Professor Tetsuaki Arai, a senior author of the study, explained that this method could make it easier to identify what type of brain disease someone has—without needing more advanced scanning tools. Professor Miho Ota, the lead author, added that being able to detect these early network changes could help doctors decide on the best care plan sooner.
This is a big step forward. If these findings are confirmed in larger studies, doctors could start using brain network scans to catch Alzheimer’s and Lewy body dementia earlier than ever before. That could mean starting treatment sooner, offering better care, and giving patients and their families more time to prepare and adapt.
For those interested in protecting brain health, recent research also shows that vitamin D and B9 (folate) deficiencies may increase the risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Other studies suggest that oral cannabis extract might reduce symptoms in Alzheimer’s patients, and flavonoid-rich foods—like berries, apples, and tea—may help people with Parkinson’s disease live longer.
As researchers keep learning more about how the brain changes in the early stages of disease, we move closer to the goal of stopping or slowing these conditions before they do serious harm. The new findings from Japan show that sometimes, the key to big problems lies in looking at the brain’s connections—not just its structure.
If you care about dementia, please read studies about low choline intake linked to higher dementia risk, and how eating nuts can affect your cognitive ability.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies that blueberry supplements may prevent cognitive decline, and results showing higher magnesium intake could help benefit brain health.
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