Computer Model of Spread of Dementia Can Predict Future Disease Patterns Years Before They Occur in a Patient
Cornell News (03/21/12) Richard Pietzak
Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have developed software that tracks the manner in which different forms of dementia spread within a human brain. The model can be used to predict where and when a person's brain will suffer from the spread of toxic proteins, a process that underlies all forms of dementia. The findings could help patients and their families confirm a diagnosis of dementia and prepare in advance for future cognitive declines over time. "Our model, when applied to the baseline magnetic resonance imaging scan of an individual brain, can similarly produce a future map of degeneration in that person over the next few years or decades," says Cornell's Ashish Raj. The computational model validates the idea that dementia is caused by proteins that spread through the brain along networks of neurons. Raj says the program models the same process by which any gas diffuses in air, except that in the case of dementia, the diffusion process occurs along connected neural fiber tracts in the brain. "While the classic patterns of dementia are well known, this is the first model to relate brain network properties to the patterns and explain them in a deterministic and predictive manner," he says.
Cornell News (03/21/12) Richard Pietzak
Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have developed software that tracks the manner in which different forms of dementia spread within a human brain. The model can be used to predict where and when a person's brain will suffer from the spread of toxic proteins, a process that underlies all forms of dementia. The findings could help patients and their families confirm a diagnosis of dementia and prepare in advance for future cognitive declines over time. "Our model, when applied to the baseline magnetic resonance imaging scan of an individual brain, can similarly produce a future map of degeneration in that person over the next few years or decades," says Cornell's Ashish Raj. The computational model validates the idea that dementia is caused by proteins that spread through the brain along networks of neurons. Raj says the program models the same process by which any gas diffuses in air, except that in the case of dementia, the diffusion process occurs along connected neural fiber tracts in the brain. "While the classic patterns of dementia are well known, this is the first model to relate brain network properties to the patterns and explain them in a deterministic and predictive manner," he says.
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