Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center other research news

Good Samaritan researchers identified specific regions of the brain in which the rate of glucose metabolism declines progressively in patients with probable Alzheimer's. Using positron emission tomography (PET), they showed that those same regions are affected in subjects with the ApoE4 allele of apolipoprotein E before the onset of cognitive impairment.

As reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, maps of the brains of 11 subjects homozygous for the allele and 22 controls without the allele were prepared, comparing regional rates of glucose metabolism between the two groups. The E4 homozygotes were cognitively normal when compared to the controls, but had significantly reduced rates of glucose metabolism in the same regions as previously studied patients with probable Alzheimer's. ...