Scientists find new, inexpensive way to predict Alzheimer’s disease

Your brain's capacity for information is a reliable predictor of Alzheimer's disease and can be cheaply and easily tested, according to scientists.

"We have developed a low-cost behavioral assessment that can clue someone in to Alzheimer's disease at its earliest stage," said Michael Wenger, associate professor of psychology at Penn State. "MRIs can cost hundreds of dollars an hour," Wenger said.

"We created a much cheaper alternative, based on a memory test, that correlates with hippocampal degradation." Wenger and his collaborators at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minn., detail their findings in the current issue of the Journal of Mathematical Psychology…

Wenger worked with Selamawit Negash, neurology research fellow, Ronald C. Peterson, professor of neurology, and Lyndsay Peterson, research associate, all at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.

Penn State Live, 4/5/2010