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Review

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 5, S34–S41 (2004)

Advances in the early detection of Alzheimer's disease

The combination of an aging population and the promise, possibly in the near future, of disease-modifying therapies have made the characterization of the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) a topic of major research interest. In this article we review recent progress in our understanding of the evolution of early AD with particular reference to the symptomatic pre-dementia stage designated 'mild cognitive impairment', emphasizing work on the early cognitive profile and associated neuroimaging studies.

Peter J Nestor1, Philip Scheltens2 & John R Hodges1, 3

1 University Neurology Unit, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 2QQ, UK.

2 Department of Neurology/Alzheimer Center, VU Medisch Centrum, PO Box 7057, 1007 MB Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

3 MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 2EF, UK.

Correspondence should be addressed to John R Hodges john.hodges@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk

Published online: 1 July 2004
doi:10.1038/nrn1433


With increasing life expectancy across the world, the number of elderly people at risk of developing dementia is growing rapidly. The prevalence of dementia rises steeply with age, doubling every 4–5 years from the age of 60, so that more than one-third of individuals over 80 years of age are likely to develop a dementia1. AD remains the most common cause of dementia in all age groups. In this review, we focus on the early detection of AD, particularly in the context of subjects with memory complaints who do not yet match criteria for AD but who are at high risk of developing a full-blown dementia syndrome in the next few years. This 'at-risk' state is commonly referred to as mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

AD is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that is characterized by the presence of amyloid deposition and neurofibrillary tangles together with the loss of cortical neurons and synapses2. Postmortem studies suggest that the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex are the first brain areas to be affected—at least by neurofibrillary pathology—with cortical association areas being increasingly involved as the disease progresses3, 4, 5, 6. The development of neurofibrillary pathology, but not of amyloid deposition, typically follows an orderly progression in topographical terms4, 7. However, it is unclear whether there is a linear progression from one topographical stage to the next in a temporal sense. Recent serial brain imaging and longitudinal neuropsychological studies indicate that diffuse neuronal and synaptic loss might also occur from an early stage. In addition to these cortical changes, subcortical neuronal loss occurs in the NUCLEUS BASALIS OF MEYNERT and in the LOCUS COERULEUS, resulting in a decrease in cortical levels of cholinergic and noradrenergic markers, respectively8, 9, 10.

The most profound and (by extrapolation) earliest cognitive deficits seem to be impairment of episodic memory—the ability to recall events that are specific to a time and place11. As the pathology spreads to involve cortical association areas, this gives rise to a dementia syndrome that is characterized by deficits in attentional and 'EXECUTIVE' FUNCTIONS (goal formulation, planning and the execution of goal-directed plans), semantic memory (word, face and object knowledge), language, praxis, and constructional and visuospatial abilities12, 13, 14, 15.

Current conceptualizations of AD presume that the neurodegenerative changes begin well before the clinical manifestations of the disease become apparent. As neuronal degeneration and the formation of neurofibrillary tangles and neuritic plaques gradually progress, a threshold for the initiation of clinical symptoms of the dementia syndrome is eventually reached. The cognitive deficits that are associated with AD then become evident and gradually worsen. When the cognitive deficits become global and are severe enough to interfere with normal social and occupational functioning, established criteria for a clinical diagnosis of AD are met (for example, those of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, edn. 4 (DSM-IV; 1994)).

Subjects in this pre-dementia stage of AD are considered to be cognitively impaired but do not meet criteria for dementia because their cognitive deficits are limited to memory alone and/or their everyday abilities are preserved (Fig. 1). A number of labels have been applied to these less clearly defined subjects, including MCI, cognitive impairment no dementia, questionable dementia, isolated memory impairment and minimal AD16, 17, 18, 19.

Fig. 1
Figure 1 | Schematic view of the transition from normal function to dementia in terms of cognitive performance and pathological burden. Figure 1

MCI: definition and prognosis
Although the concept of MCI as a high-risk pre-dementia state is straightforward, it has been difficult to develop robust and applicable clinical criteria and there are many unresolved issues16, 20. Some groups have stressed the importance of a clinical history of declining memory with normal performance on a simple cognitive screening instrument (such as the mini-mental state examination or MMSE)21 and no, or minimal, impairment in everyday life22. Other groups have applied strict neuropsychological criteria (>1.5 standard deviations below normal) to define memory impairment together with preservation of other cognitive abilities16, 19, 23. The two most important questions involve which memory test(s) should be used to define impairment (which will affect sensitivity and specificity) and how strictly we should exclude patients with other cognitive deficits. Regarding the latter, attention and lexico-semantics seem to be the most likely non-mnestic domains affected19, but whether individuals show such deficits might depend mostly on the sensitivity of tests that probe these areas. The use of different inclusion and exclusion criteria probably accounts for the large variability in reported conversion rates from MCI to AD23.

The concept of MCI assumes that it represents a transitional period before the development of AD proper, with some individuals following a more benign course than others. When neuropsychological test performance has been used to define MCI, 12–15% of patients have converted to dementia per annum, which is about ten times higher than the incidence of dementia in the general population24. Recent evidence suggests that with time most individuals with MCI will develop dementia23. Others have found, however, that the application of such strict operational criteria, at least to community samples, is poorly predictive over time because of instability of group membership in that, for instance, some cases initially designated as MCI were reclassified as normal with longitudinal follow-up25.

Another important caveat to the concept of MCI in its narrow definition as an amnesic syndrome is that it fails to capture the heterogeneity of clinical AD presentations. For instance, it is known that a minority of AD cases will present with non-mnestic cognitive manifestations such as progressive visuospatial or language deficits12. The prevalence of such variants relative to that of 'typical' AD is uncertain, so it is difficult to estimate the number of symptomatic early AD cases that are excluded by the narrow definition of 'amnesic MCI'. Furthermore, resolution of this issue is more complex than the simple creation of single cognitive domain analogs such as 'visuospatial MCI' or 'aphasic MCI' because, unlike amnesic MCI, the differential diagnosis of these variants includes a greater likelihood of alternate dementia syndromes such as dementia with Lewy bodies and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), respectively.

An ideal early marker of AD
For the early detection of AD, an ideal diagnostic tool must be sensitive to the earliest cognitive or biological changes that are found in AD but should be able to differentiate among early AD, normal aging, other organic brain disorders that cause memory loss and, importantly, mimics of early dementia including depression. It should be robust in terms of test–retest reliability, be readily applicable and, ideally, be cheap and simple if it is to gain universal application. Here we review whether any of the currently available tools measures up to these exacting standards. It is important to emphasize, however, that at this time direct comparisons of different markers, either alone or as combined algorithms, with respect to issues such as specificity and sensitivity are largely unavailable.

We place particular focus on recent neuropsychological and neuroimaging research into the early detection of AD. One further area of research, the study of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers, shares the aim of improving early diagnostic accuracy, with most studies currently focusing on measurement of the proteins tau and Abeta1–42. A crucial problem of both neuroimaging and neuropsychological methods is that the reliability of each is a function of disease severity, and, therefore, as markers attempt to identify individuals at progressively earlier disease stages, there is a risk of increasing overlap with non-AD pathology, psychiatric illness and healthy aging. At a molecular level the pathological process is likely to be well underway at a time when the earliest symptoms manifest, so a marker of these molecular changes, at least in theory, could be useful if it was relatively independent of disease severity. In practical terms, unlike neuroimaging, which has an established place in clinical diagnostic algorithms (not least for its role in excluding alternate pathologies), CSF examination is not part of most clinicians' routine diagnostic workup for suspected AD. Therefore, if a CSF biomarker is to be incorporated into routine diagnostic practice, it will need to demonstrate a considerable increase in predictive value over existing algorithms comprising clinical, neuropsychological and imaging modalities. It remains to be established whether a CSF biomarker will fulfill this standard, but considerable research continues and has recently been reviewed elsewhere26.

Neuropsychological markers of early AD
Two chief longitudinal approaches have been undertaken to investigate the most useful neuropsychological measures in detecting individuals in the early stages of AD: (i) community-based studies of normal elderly subjects, some of whom develop dementia, and (ii) studies of individuals with MCI who are selected to be at high risk of dementia, or presymptomatic individuals who are at risk of autosomal dominant familial AD.

The first, community-based, approach has consistently shown that deficits in episodic memory can be reliably found at least 5 years before the onset of clinical dementia25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. Deficits in non-memory-based cognitive domains, including mental speed, executive tests, category fluency and auditory attention span, are also indicators of subsequent dementia28, 31, 33.

Information on familial AD is much more limited, but one group34 studied over a 6-year period 63 subjects who were 'at risk' of autosomal dominant familial AD; during the study, ten individuals developed clinical deficits. This subgroup of converters had significantly lower verbal memory scores and performance IQ measures at their baseline assessment, compared with those who did not convert. Given that the cognitive profile of familial AD might differ in subtle, but important, ways from that of sporadic AD, the findings from such studies should be extrapolated with caution.

Clinic-based studies have generally contrasted the baseline performance of MCI patient groups (variously defined) who did or did not progress to dementia (converters versus nonconverters). Again, severity of impairment on tests of episodic memory (story recall, word list learning) is generally the most predictive measure, but deficits in semantic memory (category fluency, naming), attentional processing and mental speed (for example, time to complete the Trails B test, the self-ordering test, symbol/digit substitution) also consistently predict conversion to AD35, 36, 37, 38. Recent work has suggested that semantic knowledge about famous people is lost very early in the course of AD39, 40, 41.

The results of a longitudinal study in Cambridge, UK42, 43 confirmed earlier work from Australia44, 45 suggesting that a test of spatial learning, the paired-associates learning (PAL) test from the CANTAB computed battery, is sensitive to the early stages of AD and might be able to distinguish patients with early AD from depressed subjects (Fig. 2). An analysis of converters and nonconverters showed that an algorithm that takes account of age and performance on PAL and a difficult object-naming test was highly predictive of early AD43. Complementary work has shown that persons with FTD generally perform within normal limits on PAL, further increasing its clinical usefulness46.

Fig. 2
Figure 2 | The PAL test. Figure 1

These studies confirm that stringent tests of episodic memory are the best current predictors of conversion to AD. Of these tests, the PAL test shows the highest discriminating ability and is one of the few tests that has been given to patients with other forms of dementia and to depressed subjects. The sensitivity of the PAL test has been attributed to the cross-domain associative learning and spatial components of the task, which might tax hippocampus-dependent episodic memory processes.

The early stages of AD also seem to involve subtle deficits in non-mnestic domains such as semantic memory and attentional processes47, perhaps reflecting early synaptic loss in the temporal neocortex and frontal cortex, respectively. Several computerized cognitive batteries have been designed that take advantage of these findings, and these show considerable promise48, 49.

Structural imaging markers of early AD
Numerous structural MRI studies have demonstrated that atrophy of the medial temporal lobe, including the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, is a sensitive marker of AD50, 51, 52, 53, 54. Similar measures have been applied to patients with MCI (Fig. 3), and it has been suggested that atrophy of medial temporal lobe structures might predict progression to AD55, 56, 57, 58, 59. On the basis of the sequence of tangle deposition in the medial temporal lobe in the development of AD pathology60, it has been argued that decreased entorhinal cortex volume might be a particularly sensitive predictor of AD. For instance, one group55 used MRI to measure the volumes of the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus in 137 individuals, and found that the volume of the entorhinal cortex distinguished the subjects who were destined to develop dementia with considerable accuracy (84%), whereas the hippocampal measure did not. Other studies have produced less clear-cut results, which might reflect difficulties in delineating the entorhinal cortex on MRI50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62.

Fig. 3
Figure 3 | Comparable T1-weighted coronal MRI slices. Figure 1

However, it is difficult to carry out volumetric assessment of these structures in routine clinical practice because of the need for digital three-dimensional MRI data, the time-consuming nature of region-of-interest analysis and the lack of automated volume measurement techniques. By contrast, medial temporal lobe atrophy can be easily assessed using a standardized visual rating scale63, 64, 65, 66, which has surprisingly good predictive accuracy (on the order of 80–90%) that is comparable to that obtained using volumetric methods57, 58, 65, 66. Despite these encouraging results, no definite conclusions regarding the clinical usefulness of visual ratings can be drawn. Patient samples have tended to be small and highly selected, and not reflective of routine clinical practice.

A recent study attempted to address these issues in a large group of subjects and showed that the odds ratio for progression to dementia of a summed visual rating score was 1.8 per point increase in the scale and 5.1 for atrophy based on the dichotomized score (atrophy present versus absent)67. The sensitivity for detecting persons with dementia at follow-up was 70% and the specificity was 68% (positive and negative predictive values of 68% and 70%, respectively). Overall, these figures indicate that detection of very early AD cases among MCI subjects is feasible.

It remains to be established whether either volumetric or visually based rating scales have greater predictive value than routinely used neuropsychological test batteries (discussed earlier), the clinical dementia rating (CDR), or APOE4 genotype, all of which are known predictors of cognitive decline25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 43, 44, 45, 51, 68, 69, 70.

The Dementia Research Group in London developed the method of serial registration of MRI scans, in which patients act as their own controls. This technique permits accurate study of changes over time in the early stages of AD71. A longitudinal study using this method found significantly increased rates of hippocampal atrophy in presymptomatic and mildly affected patients, whereas the inferolateral regions of the temporal lobes showed the most markedly increased rates of atrophy in mildly or moderately affected individuals72. A study of persons who were at risk for familial AD suggested that medial temporal lobe atrophy commenced 3.5 years (95% confidence interval, 0.7–7.5 years) before disease onset, when these individuals were still asymptomatic73. Because this study involved persons at risk for familial AD, it is possible that the results might not apply to sporadic AD. In a recent study in which the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, whole brain and ventricles were measured from serial MRI studies in a large group of sporadic cases, the annualized atrophy rates were greater in normal subjects who converted to MCI or AD than among those who remained stable, greater in MCI subjects who converted to AD than among nonconverters and greater in fast-progressing AD than slow74. This study did not confirm the preference for medial temporal over neocortical structures in the transition from MCI to AD, however.

Another automated method of measuring brain atrophy is voxel-based morphometry (VBM), which, like serial co-registration, objectively maps gray matter loss between populations on a voxel-by-voxel basis analogous to that used in functional imaging. The advantage of VBM over analyses based on region of interest is that VBM produces an unbiased view and considers all available MRI information75. The first VBM study in MCI patients showed marked gray matter loss predominantly affecting the hippocampal region and cingulate gyri (posterior and subcallosal part of the anterior), extending into the temporal neocortex in MCI76. Compared with age-matched individuals with mild AD, gray matter density was substantially preserved in MCI in the posterior association cortex. A recent study confirmed and extended these findings by demonstrating significant local reductions in gray matter in the medial temporal lobe, the insula and the thalamus in MCI patients compared with controls. By contrast, when compared with subjects with AD, MCI subjects had better preserved gray matter in parietal association areas and the anterior and posterior cingulate. It therefore seems that gray matter loss in the medial temporal lobe characterizes MCI, whereas more diffuse cortical gray matter loss might be a feature of AD (G. Karas et al., personal communication) (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4
Figure 4 | Cumulative gray matter loss in patients with MCI (red) and AD (blue) estimated using computational neuroanatomy methods (VBM). Figure 4

A slightly different view emerges from studies using whole-brain volumetric magnetization transfer imaging, which identifies areas of axonal damage in structures that appear normal. One group of researchers showed that cognitive decline in patients with MCI is associated with widespread structural brain damage, suggesting that pathology in MCI is much more generalized than was expected77. This finding is in keeping with neuropsychological studies (discussed earlier), which have consistently shown impairment in mental speed and attentional processes in patients with MCI.

To conclude, structural MRI gives insight into the presence of 'typical' AD pathology in vivo in MCI and might provide a means to predict, among the heterogeneous group of MCI subjects, those who are likely to become demented in the near future. This has been shown to be true at a group level, and with qualitative analysis might even be feasible in clinical practice, with test characteristics fulfilling the requirements of the ideal marker as described earlier. It has yet to be confirmed in individuals, however, whether this is true for a single MRI marker, or whether an algorithm that combines it with other measures, especially neuropsychological tests, is necessary78.

Functional imaging in MCI and AD
Functional brain imaging offers potential insights into all of the main pathological features of AD—neuronal loss, tangle deposition, cholinergic depletion and amyloid plaques. As already mentioned, tangle pathology begins in the medial temporal lobe (a region in which focal lesions give rise to amnesia) and episodic memory impairment is the most salient clinical deficit in AD. It is therefore not surprising that considerable attention has focused on changes in structural imaging (see previous section) of this area as a marker of AD and MCI. When one turns from anatomy to physiology, however, a different but complementary picture begins to emerge. This relates in part to the emphasis in structural imaging research on improving diagnostic accuracy, whereas functional studies have to some extent been more concerned with understanding pathophysiological mechanisms.

The two most common methods for imaging resting-state cerebral activity are to calculate regional glucose metabolism with POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY (PET) or to use regional cerebral blood perfusion as a surrogate of metabolic activity with the less sophisticated—but more widely available—SINGLE-PHOTON EMISSION COMPUTERIZED TOMOGRAPHY (SPECT). In clinically probable AD, either method shows dysfunction (hypometabolism or hypoperfusion) in temporo-parieto-occipital association cortices and later in frontal association cortices. When researchers studied changes in the medial temporal region, however, early studies found that marked abnormalities either were not identified79, 80 or were seen only in cases with established AD81, 82, 83..

Contemporaneous with these studies, the development of voxel-based image analysis techniques proved a major advance in the field. Briefly, these methods (for example, statistical parametric mapping or SPM) involve spatial normalization of individual scans to a standardized brain-volume template and smoothing of data to reduce the effects of interindividual variability in gyral anatomy. Populations can then be compared on a voxel-by-voxel basis to identify regions of abnormality across the whole brain. Using these principles, one group reported that the earliest changes seen in very mild AD (MMSE 25 1) were in the posterior cingulate cortex84. Subsequent work supported this unexpected finding. For instance, SPECT showed that individuals with MCI who subsequently converted to AD had hypoperfusion in the posterior cingulate cortex85, 86, 87, and a PET study showed that hypometabolism in the posterior cingulate cortex—particularly the retrosplenial component—was the only cortical abnormality common to all MCI individuals scanned88 (Fig. 5). Given that epidemiological data suggest that MCI is an antecedent to AD, it is not surprising that subjects who fulfill clinical MCI criteria—but in whom functional imaging reveals lateral posterior association cortex abnormalities akin to those found in established AD—are at greatest risk of early conversion to dementia88, 89, 90, 91. The extent to which posterior cingulate changes might offer diagnostic sensitivity and specificity for defining a prodromal AD state remains to be established; in particular, studies in which baseline imaging was related to longitudinal outcome have used an inadequate follow-up duration to be confident of the ultimate diagnosis of a sufficiently large cohort. Nevertheless, its repeated appearance in functional imaging studies make this an important area for future clinical research.

Fig. 5
Figure 5 | Imaging from a 59-year-old male (MMSE = 29/30, CDR = 0.5) who met consensus criteria for MCI23. Figure 5

Returning to the medial temporal lobe, more sensitive methods have since shown that this area is also abnormal in patients with MCI. Using a technique in which regions of interest were traced onto subjects' volumetric MRI scans—thus improving anatomical localization—one group of researchers studied the temporal lobe and found that MCI cases had restricted hypometabolism in the entorhinal and hippocampal areas. In contrast, subjects with AD had additional metabolic reductions beyond these areas in the temporal neocortex92. In an attempt to reconcile medial temporal lobe pathology with posterior cingulate hypometabolism in early AD/MCI, it was proposed that these two findings might be related in view of anatomical knowledge that the regions are linked through the circuit of Papez (entorhinal cortex–hippocampus–mamillary body–anteromedial thalamus–posterior cingulate cortex–entorhinal cortex). Also using co-registered volumetric MRI to define anatomical regions of interest, these authors found that groups with clinically probable AD and MCI showed comparable metabolic reductions at each node in this circuit. Furthermore, abnormalities were restricted to this network in the MCI group, whereas in AD additional metabolic reductions were found in the amygdala and lateral association cortices93.

Another question arising from these studies relates to whether changes in this network are a consequence of local pathology at each site or of remote effects of medial temporal damage. In other words, because fluorodeoxyglucose-PET (FDG-PET) is principally a measure of synaptic activity94, are changes in the diencephalon and posterior cingulate cortex due to medial temporal cell loss? In support of this proposal, epilepsy patients who have undergone medial temporal lobectomy have reductions in cerebral perfusion (H215O-PET) in the thalamus and posterior cingulate cortex95. Serial co-registered MRI showed that presymptomatic carriers of autosomal dominant AD-related mutations have accelerated brain volume loss in both the posterior cingulate cortex and the hippocampus, however, suggesting that local pathology is an important variable96. This interpretation is further supported by the findings of the VBM studies in MCI discussed in the previous section.

These converging lines of evidence suggest that MCI, in which episodic memory impairment is the only significant cognitive deficit, is associated with damage to a restricted neural network. Aside from informing the pathophysiological evolution of early AD, these findings are also relevant to our understanding of normal episodic memory in humans. It is well known that medial temporal and diencephalic lesions can produce amnesia, but, on the basis of anatomical connectivity, it has been speculated that lesions to the posterior cingulate cortex might disrupt a crucial junction between prefrontal and medial temporal networks, thus impairing a neural pathway for retrieval of episodic memory88. Some support for this hypothesis came from a recent study of encoding and retrieval of episodic memory in subjects with MCI, using a paradigm that varied the load on each process97. Encoding deficits correlated with atrophy and hypometabolism in the hippocampus, whereas retrieval deficits correlated with hippocampal atrophy and posterior cingulate hypometabolism. These data are consistent with functional imaging literature in healthy subjects that indicates that activation of the posterior cingulate cortex is particularly associated with successful episodic memory retrieval98.

In addition to measurements of cerebral metabolism, functional imaging has offered insights through the development of specific ligands. The cholinergic hypothesis in AD99 has been prominent for three decades and was the impetus to the development of cholinesterase inhibitor drug therapy. Using PET scanning with the cholinesterase tracer N-[11C]methylpiperidinyl-4-propionate ([11C]PMP), one group showed, in vivo, that cholinesterase activity in moderate AD is reduced. The cortical distribution of changes was homogeneous, however, and did not correlate with FDG-PET findings, suggesting that a cholinergic deficit does not drive the metabolic changes100. Using a similar piperidyl derivative, N-[11C]methylpiperidinyl-4-acetate ([11C]MP4A), another group of researchers have since reported only modest reduction of cholinesterase activity in the hippocampus of MCI cases, which was not statistically different from that of controls101. These results are consistent with recent pathological work, which indicates that cholinergic depletion might not be a major feature of very early AD102, 103. These findings are also consistent with clinical experience that the cholinesterase inhibitors do not exert a large benefit on 'hard' cognitive measures such as episodic memory performance. Indeed, one of the studies suggested that cholinergic activity might initially be upregulated in MCI103. Because cholinergic inputs are thought primarily to modulate attention104, it is tempting to speculate that this upregulation might be a consequence of greater recruitment of attentional systems in an attempt to compensate for the memory deficit. This proposal has some resonance with the observation that patients with mild AD show greater activation of prefrontal cortex than controls during memory retrieval tasks105, 106, but more evidence is needed before stronger conclusions can be drawn.

The latest development in functional imaging relates to the final pathological hallmark of AD—amyloid plaques. All of the genetic mutations that have so far been associated with autosomal dominant AD modulate amyloid metabolism. This suggests that amyloid metabolism is an important pathogenic mechanism in AD and, as such, amyloid imaging might be an important surrogate marker for trials of disease-modifying agents. The first in vivo human study of the novel amyloid-marking tracer 'Pittsburgh Compound-B' was recently published and suggested a similar pattern of cerebral uptake to the distribution of amyloid deposition in histopathological studies107. Further studies evaluating the longitudinal changes in amyloid deposition and its topographical distribution in vivo are awaited with interest. In the meantime, the functional imaging data suggest that the neural basis of the earliest clinical deficits in AD are local, probably glutamatergic, cell loss in medial temporal and interconnected limbic regions such as the posterior cingulate. This pattern approximates, to some degree, the distribution of early tangle pathology.

Conclusion
Considerable progress has been made in recent years, in both the characterization of the cognitive profile of very early AD and its neural basis. Much work is still required, however, to clarify with greater accuracy and precision the transitional zone between healthy aging and the first manifestations of AD. At present, it is clear that individuals in the prodromal stages of AD can show marked impairments on formal memory tests, although they continue to cope independently in their normal daily routine, and that this state can persist for several years before dementia develops. Reliably distinguishing such individuals from those in whom mild cognitive deficits will remain stable over time is an important challenge for ongoing research. Another question relates to whether a symptomatic 'pre-MCI' stage can be accurately identified. For instance, individuals who are diagnosed as having MCI by current consensus criteria19 are required to have marked memory impairment on neuropsychological testing, but this excludes the population with subjective memory symptoms not confirmed by objective measures. It seems plausible that some of this population will be showing the initial signs of dementia. Ultimately, neuropsychological measures are only semi-objective—being confounded by such issues as participant motivation—and, therefore, as research probes more closely at the boundary between prodromal dementia and healthy aging, there will probably be a point at which an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio cannot be attained. At this point a purely objective marker would be advantageous. Present evidence suggests that no single marker of MRI atrophy or even PET metabolic change is likely to achieve perfect discriminant value for individual subjects at this prodromal stage on a single scan. Serial co-registration of MRI71 to identify accelerated volume loss seems to be particularly useful for predicting the fate of individual subjects but requires longitudinal imaging, possibly for >2 years, to achieve diagnostic certainty. Future work focused on novel, disease-specific, MRI sequences or PET-SPECT radioligands might offer greater predictive value.


HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE

Please cite this article as supplement to volume 5 of Nature Reviews Neuroscience, pages S34–S41.

Received 6 April 2004; Accepted 21 May 2004; Published online 1 July 2004.

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