Increased knowledge about the pre-clinical and early clinical stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) will be key in developing preventative strategies for the disease as well as development of therapeutic treatment strategies. In addition, this approach will contribute to the development of biomarkers for the early diagnosis of AD. Our research team in a previous study has examined in an MCI group the relationship between the structural integrity of the fornix and the functional connectivity between the hippocampus and thalamus and found that there was a linear correlation between the two measures in a healthy group but not in the MCI group. Building upon this work, the main aim of this project is to combine multi-modal MRI data to assess the structural and functional connectivity among the regions that the cingulum tracts connect. This project is part of the long term objective to develop methods for the early diagnosis of memory impairments due to AD, and thus contribute to the goal of developing strategies for the prevention of AD.
Meath Foundation.