#neuroimaging

March 2026

Side projects are really just another form of procrastination tbh 😂

A real brain scan showing that ADHD

As Alzheimer's Disease (AD) research skews toward understanding the brain than the pathogenic proteins, studies exploring biomarkers and neuroimaging are hopeful toward developing a method for successful prevention of AD. A biomarker is a molecule, whose presence indicates abnormality or disease, and thus, is crucial in diagnostic procedures. Levels of certain molecules is notably altered in cerebrospinal fluid and in blood plasma, which helps in diagnosing the occurrence of AD. Neuroimaging involves the use of techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography to observe neuronal activity in the brain. This is good news, especially for AD, as the asymptomatic stage of the disease can be identified early enough.

Although the exact function and involvement in clinical practice is not profuse, altered concentrations of these biomarkers in plasma or cerebrospinal fluid encourage further research:

Amyloid and tau serve as the unsurprising biomarkers of AD pathology.

Neurofilament-light chain (NF-L) and visinin-like protein-1 (VILIP-1) are the most promising biomarkers of neuronal injury.

Post-synaptic protein neurogranin (Ng) and pre-synaptic proteins synaptosome-associated protein-25 (SNAP-25) and synaptotagmin-1 (Syt-1) are considered major biomarkers of synaptic injury.

Brain and CSF levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and increased levels of interleukin group of proteins (ILs) indicate intensified microglial response to neuroinflammation.

TREM2 receptor and YKL-40 glycoprotein are also reliable indicators of inflammation and impaired clearance of amyloid beta.

Heart-type fatty acid-binding protein (hFABP) could be a marker for pathology in blood vessels supplying the brain. Some vascular markers also show potential as markers of vascular injury in AD: von Willebrand factor (vWF) and monokine induced by γ-interferon (MIG, also known as CXCL-9).

Concentrations of TAR-DNA binding protein (TDP-43) in the brain and plasma and serum indicate, even contribute to, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and neuronal/synaptic injury in AD.

Neuroimaging techniques reveal structural, functional, and diffusion-related activities of the neurons. To identify them, markers are tracked in images obtained. Each marker is determined with the activity and biochemistry of the group of/individual neurons being studied.

Structural MRI will show location and severity of atrophy which can be identified in grey scale images by applying programs that create analogous color grading.

Functional MRI relies on blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal which reflects changes in blood oxygenation levels in response to neural activity.

Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) focuses on diffusion of water molecules. A tensor model is applied to images obtained from DWI. The diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics thus obtained help in studying connectivity through structural integrity of white matter tracts.

Tractography involves 3-D reconstruction of white matter as observed in DWI, which provides a more detailed look into a patient’s neural networks.

In positron emission tomography (PET), markers are identified and labelled so their features or functions can be traced during this procedure to obtain a resulting PET scan. The imaging procedure is named according to its marker: amyloid-PET, tau-PET, FDG-PET, inflammation-PET, receptor-PET.

FDA approved drugs Galantamine, Rivastigmine, and Donepezil alleviate symptoms such as memory loss and confusion in mild to moderate AD, although their effects seem to be negligible. They also cause nausea and vomiting as side effects and are not suitable for every patient. Recently approved drugs, Aducanumab and Lecanemab focus on removing accumulated amyloid. Their effectiveness is still doubted on the basis of studies finding that targeting amyloid has little to do with curbing the actual progression of the disease.

bibliography -

Tarawneh R. Biomarkers: our path towards a cure for Alzheimer disease. Biomarker insights. 2020 Nov;15:1177271920976367.

Cavedo E, Lista S, Khachaturian Z, Aisen P, Amouyel P, Herholz K, Jack Jr CR, Sperling R, Cummings J, Blennow K, O’Bryant S. The road ahead to cure Alzheimer’s disease: development of biological markers and neuroimaging methods for prevention trials across all stages and target populations. The journal of prevention of Alzheimer's disease. 2014 Dec;1(3):181.

Human brain organoids successfully integrate into the mouse cortex and respond to visual stimuli Could these mini-brain 'grafts' be used to repair brain injuries in the future?

Could these mini-brain ‘grafts’ be used to repair brain injuries in the future? In a world’s first, researchers have shown that human brain organoids transplanted into live animals’ brains successfully formed human-mouse synaptic connections and reacted to visual stimuli. The results, made possible by an unprecedented multi-faceted technology, show the cross-species transplant merged with the…