Scientists have developed a blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease without the need for expensive brain imaging or a painful lumbar puncture, where a sample of cerebrospinal (脑脊髓的) fluid (CSF) is drawn from the lower back.
Current guidelines recommend detection of three distinct markers: abnormal accumulations of amyloid (淀粉样蛋白) and tau proteins, as well as neurodegeneration—the slow and progressive loss of neuronal cells (神经元细胞) in specified regions of the brain. This can be done through a combination of brain imaging and CSF analysis. However, a lumbar puncture can be painful and people may experience headaches or back pain after the procedure, while brain imaging is expensive and takes a long time to schedule. Thomas Karikari at the University of Pittsburgh, who was involved in the study, said,” A lot of patients, even in the US, don’t have access to MRI and PET scanners. Accessibility is a major issue.”
The development of a reliable blood test would be an important step forwards. “A blood test is cheaper, safer and easier to conduct, and it can improve clinical confidence in diagnosing Alzheimer’s and selecting participants for clinical trial and disease monitoring,” Karikari said.
Although current blood tests can accurately detect abnormalities in amyloid and tau proteins, detecting markers of nerve cell damage that are specific to the brain has been harder. Karikari and his colleagues around the world focused on developing an antibody-based blood test that would detect a particular form of tau protein called brain-derived tau,which is specific to Alzheimer’s disease.
They tested it in 600 patients at various stages of Alzheimer’s and found that levels of the protein correlated well with levels of tau in the CSF,and could reliably distinguish Alzheimer’s from other neurodegenerative diseases.
The next step will be to validate the test in a broader range of patients, including those from varied racial backgrounds, and those suffering from different stages of memory loss or other potential dementia symptoms.
【小题1】What does Paragraph 2 mainly talk about concerning the current detection method?| A．Its reliability | B．Its importance | C．Its complexity. | D．Its disadvantages |
| A．They created a blood test to detect brain-derived tau. |
| B．They developed a medicine to cure Alzheimer’s disease. |
| C．They found a way to safely draw CSF from patients’back. |
| D．They discovered protein to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. |
| A．Invent. | B．Confirm | C．Forecast. | D．Prohibit. |
| A．To raise people’s awareness of Alzheimer’s disease. |
| B．To question a common view about Alzheimer’s disease. |
| C．To introduce an approach to detecting Alzheimer’s disease. |
| D．To provide evidence for the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. |
