Which neurodegenerative disorder is caused by a decrease in dopamine levels and an increase in acetylcholine levels in the brain?

Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease

Dementia causes symptoms that affect memory, thinking, and social abilities severely enough to interfere with a patient’s daily life.

What happens inside the brain?

How is dementia and Alzheimer's disease diagnosed?

A lot of the diagnosis still depends on the report of relatives, who are often the first to notice changes in memory or personality and can describe changes over time.

Professor Clare Mackay, PhD, Associate Director, Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity (OHBA), UK

SPECT exams should be made more accessible by reducing costs. It would be useful for screening patients with cognitive risks, to protect both themselves and a healthy society.

Jun Hatazawa, MD, PhD, Chief Executive Director, Japan Radioisotope Association

The likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s may be only one to two percent at age 65. But then it doubles every five years. Existing drugs cannot reverse the course of the degeneration, they can only slow it down. This is why it’s crucial to make the right diagnosis in the preliminary stages – when the first mild cognitive disorder appears – and to filter out Alzheimer’s patients.”

Andreas Papadopoulos, MD, PhD, Scientific Coordinator, Iatropolis Medical Group, Athens, Greece

Visualization of the hippocampal sub-structures in the patient’s brain is possible with ultra-high-field magnetic resonance imaging. 0,2 mm in-plane resolution offers potential for clinical evaluation in patients with Alzheimer‘s disease.

Can dementia and Alzheimer's disease be treated?

Multi-disciplinary teams and AI support clinical decision-making

Parkinson‘s Disease

Parkinson signs and symptoms can be different for every patient. Early signs might be mild and can even go unnoticed.

What happens inside the brain?

Substantia Nigra

How is Parkinson’s diagnosed?

With objective assessment, we can predict the occurrence of movement disorder, which is useful for the prevention of Parkinson’s disease.

Hiroshi Matsuda, MD, PhD, Director, Cyclotron and Drug Discovery Research Center, Southern Tohoku Research Institute for Neuroscience, Japan

A normal SPECT DaT image (top) with the corresponding MR image (bottom). While DaT imaging is normally done with SPECT/CT, the striatum is better localized on MR images.

Proton MR spectroscopy at 7 Tesla2 can be used to provide not only metabolic information, but also anatomical information. Ultra-high resolution spectroscopy has potential for clinical applications such as in tumors, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Can Parkinson’s be treated?

The role of nuclear medicine in Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases

Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is a disease with unpredictable symptoms that can also vary in intensity. Different symptoms can manifest during relapses or attacks.

What happens inside the brain?

How is multiple sclerosis diagnosed?

7-tesla-imaging for early detection of MS

Standard FLAIR together with SHI at 7T may help better understanding multiple sclerosis. Detecting iron accumulation and the vein densitiy in plaques can be possible thanks to ultra-high resolution at 7T.

Joining forces to combat MS

How to accelerate progress in diagnosis and treatment

Given the limited diagnostic and therapeutic options for neurodegenerative diseases, researchers, and industry are pooling their strengths.

What lies ahead?

Looking at the near future - what could be possible next steps and developments?

The disorder starts 20 years before you see the symptomology. So, people have started to generate studies of healthy people, and follow them in time to identify early biomarkers. If you find the biomarker, or molecules in the blood, that reveals the first signs of the disease, you can try the drugs right away. Until we reach that point, it will be very difficult to find drugs.

Professor emeritus Adriana Maggi, PhD, University of Milan, Italy