Through a 20-year study, Professor Jia Jianping’s team from Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University,For the first time, the dynamic changes of cerebrospinal fluid and imaging biomarkers in Alzheimer's disease (AD) from the asymptomatic to symptomatic stages were revealed., clarified the key time points for physiological and pathological changes in the onset of AD,It provides time window guidance for new anti-AD drugs targeting Aβ (β-amyloid) and other related pathological proteins.
On February 22, the relevant results were published online in the New England Journal of Medicine. This is the first time that Chinese scholars in the field of AD have published a research paper in the journal.
AD is usually divided into familial Alzheimer's disease (FAD) and sporadic Alzheimer's disease (SAD). Patients have a long asymptomatic period before being diagnosed with AD, which is a golden window period to prevent the occurrence of AD or reverse the course of the disease. The identification of this stage relies on biomarkers.
Jia Jianping said that most current research on AD biomarkers is conducted in FAD. Some studies have shown that Aβ in SAD is different from FAD, which suggests that the biomarkers of SAD may have different trajectories, and the biomarker prediction model obtained by using FAD research may not be applicable to the SAD population.
Jia Jianping introduced,This study is the largest longitudinal cohort study with the longest follow-up time in the world to date that reflects changes in biomarkers before AD diagnosis.The study changes the current situation of using the appearance time of FAD biomarkers to apply to SAD, and provides strong evidence for ultra-early diagnosis and precise intervention of AD.