Dementia-related brain changes observed before memory or thinking problems are noticeable
The joint study, published in the Neurobiology of Aging on May 8, looked at older adults who are living in the Toronto community without assistance and who were unaware of any major memory problems, but scored below the normal benchmark on a dementia screening test. Within these older adults, researchers also found evidence of less brain tissue in the same subregion of the brain where Alzheimer's disease originates (the anterolateral entorhinal cortex located in the brain's temporal lobe). This U of T-Baycrest study is the first to measure this particular brain subregion in older adults who do not have a dementia diagnosis or memory problems that affect their day-to-day routine. It is also the first study to demonstrate that performance on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) dementia screening test is linked to the volume (size) of this subregion, along with other brain regions affected early in the course of Alzheimer's disease. "This work is an importa...