Neurodegenerative Disorders
Neurodegenerative Disorders
This lecture provides a comprehensive guide to the modern, biology-based management of dementia. It moves beyond traditional symptom-based diagnosis to explore how neuroimaging and fluid biomarkers can detect neurodegenerative diseases years before clinical symptoms emerge. The session highlights the "ATN" framework and characteristic imaging patterns that help clinicians differentiate Alzheimer’s disease from other forms of dementia.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of this lecture, students will be able to:
- Define dementia as a broad syndrome and categorize its most common underlying causes (e.g., Alzheimer’s, Vascular dementia, FTLD).
- Explain the ATN model (Amyloid, Tau, and Neurodegeneration) and how it is measured using CSF and molecular imaging.
- Identify key structural MRI markers, such as Mesial Temporal Atrophy (MTA), and understand their significance in Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
- Differentiate between various dementia types using specific imaging signs, such as the "Hummingbird sign" in PSP or the "Swallowtail sign" in Parkinson’s disease.
- Evaluate the role of MRI in monitoring ARIA (Amyloid-Related Imaging Abnormalities) in patients receiving new disease-modifying therapies.
Topics covered in this lesson
- Overview of proteinopathies (Amyloid and Tau) and the progression from preclinical stages to clinical symptoms.
- The use of 3D T1-weighted images for volumetry and T2/FLAIR for assessing vascular co-pathology (Fazekas scale).
- Introduction to Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL), and Functional MRI (fMRI) in research.
- The specific roles of FDG, Amyloid, and Tau PET in visualizing disease-specific metabolic and protein patterns.
- Identifying potentially treatable causes like Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH) and recognizing rare conditions like Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
- The emergence of blood-based biomarkers and automated volumetric tools for early detection and tracking.
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