New method to predict Alzheimer's created

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., April 5 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they've developed a method of reliably predicting development of Alzheimer's disease.

Pennsylvania State University Associate Professor Michael Wenger said the method involves one's brain's capacity for information storage.

"We have developed a low-cost behavioral assessment that can clue someone in to Alzheimer's disease at its earliest stage," Wenger said. "By examining (information) processing capacity, we can detect changes in the progression of mild cognitive impairment."

Such impairment is a condition that affects language, memory and related mental functions and is distinct from the ordinary mental degradation associated with aging, Wenger said.

Both mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's are linked to a steady decline in the volume of the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for long-term memory and spatial reasoning, Wenger said.

Although magnetic resonance imaging is the most reliable and direct way to detect hippocampal atrophy, the scientists said the procedure is often unavailable or too expensive.

"MRIs can cost hundreds of dollars an hour," Wenger said. "We created a much cheaper alternative, based on a memory test that correlates with hippocampal degradation."

Wenger, along with Mayo Clinic College of Medicine scientists Selamawit Negash, Ronald Peterson and Lyndsay Peterson detailed their findings in a recent issue of the Journal of Mathematical Psychology.