Newswise — This year, the Miami Beach symposium kicked off on a rainy Friday with a new name and a new focus on biomarkers. For seven years, the meeting has been called the Mild Cognitive Impairment Symposium, but that changed this year to the Symposium on Early Alzheimer’s Disease. The change comes as a nod to a recent and dramatic shift in how Alzheimer disease is perceived, and what researchers increasingly see as the most promising angle of attack for future therapeutics. Part of the name change comes from the appreciation that AD probably begins years, or even decades before any outward cognitive changes, even the mildest ones. Many researchers now believe that during that clinically silent time, amyloid builds up, brain metabolism declines, and neurons are at risk and dying. The duration of this clinically silent stage seems to be influenced by genetic and lifestyle factors, and by “cognitive reserve,” an expression of the resiliency of the brain. Only when significant brain damage has occurred do the telltale memory signs show up, followed by progression to dementia. Probing the earliest stages of AD requires biomarkers, which are being tested at a rapid pace as a wealth of data emerges from the large Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative study.
Read the full conference report here. Speakers' Powerpoint slides are also available for view.http://www.alzforum.org/res/for/vir/miami/2010/default.asp
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