Alzheimer’s warning signs could emerge years before memory loss, study finds

Stanford Medicine researchers report that patterns in how brain regions communicate may help identify Alzheimer’s risk years before memory problems appear. The findings could improve understanding of why some older people retain strong cognitive abilities while others experience decline, and may help guide research into future treatments.

The team developed an Alzheimer’s resilience-vulnerability connectome score, or ARC score, which distinguished people with Alzheimer’s from “super agers” with about 85% accuracy. Among more than 1,300 adults aged 55 to 70 who had normal memory-test results, those with brain activity patterns more like Alzheimer’s were more likely to show faster cognitive decline, develop amyloid plaques and later receive a diagnosis during follow-up of up to 12 years. The researchers said the score matched or outperformed some existing risk measures, but it is not ready to diagnose patients on its own.