Schöll Group:Research
Neurodegenerative diseases are notoriously difficult to diagnose early and there is still no cure available for dementia disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Biomarkers derived from imaging modalities such as positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as biomarkers based on the analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) or blood, have become immensely important especially for the early identification of individuals who are likely to develop a neurodegenerative disorder, since an established notion is that potentially successful treatments should be deployed as early as possible in the disease process.
This early identification of neuropathological processes using adequate biomarkers currently not only supports reliable clinical diagnoses but also serves the recruitment of suitable candidates for clinical treatment trials, and renders possible the application of these biomarkers as outcome measures in treatment trials.
In particular the recent development of methods to map the accumulation of conformationally faulty forms of proteins and the subsequent synaptic impairment in vivo using PET has profoundly changed the way these processes can be identified at an early, presymptomatic disease stage. The Schöll group is using the most recent developments in molecular imaging by means of PET in combination with other neuroimaging- and fluid-based biomarkers, as well as neuropsychological profiling to develop holistic, validated, and usable tools for such an early identification.
