Alzheimer's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Alzheimer's Disease, including details on diagnosis, memory loss, heredity, treatment, medication.

A quantitative near-infrared spectroscopy study: a decrease in cerebral hemoglobin oxygenation in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment.

Arai H, Takano M, Miyakawa K, Ota T, Takahashi T, Asaka H, Kawaguchi T

Department of Psychiatry, Juntendo University School of Medicine, 2-1-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. heii@med.juntendo.ac.jp

A newly developed quantitative near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system was used to measure changes in cortical hemoglobin oxygenation during the Verbal Fluency Task in 32 healthy controls, 15 subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 15 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The amplitude of changes in the waveform, which was quantitatively calculated by a signal processing method, was significantly lower in the frontal, and the bilateral parietal areas in the AD group, whereas that in the MCI group was significantly lower only in the right parietal area. The NIRS system may be a potential tool for the primary screening of AD.

Published 30 May 2006 in Brain Cogn, 61(2): 189-94.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Alzheimer's Disease Research Today. All Rights Reserved.