Brain cells loss leads to Alzheimer's disease

People who have lost cells in the hippocampus area of the brain are more likely to develop dementia, scientists said in Tuesday's issue of the journal of American Academy of Neurology.

Dr. Wouter J. P. Henneman, at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and colleagues used MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to measure the volume of the entire brain, as well as the hippocampus in 64 Alzheimer's patients at the start of the study and again an average of 18 months later in order to calculate the rate of brain shrinkage.

The participants include 44 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is the stage of memory problems that occurs before Alzheimer's, and 34 with no memory or thinking problems, who served as "controls."

During the study, the team found three of the "controls" and 23 of the people with MCI had developed Alzheimer's disease, and that the "controls" with smaller hippocampal volumes and higher rates of shrinkage were 2 to 4 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's than those with larger hippocampal volumes and a slower rate of shrinkage.

"This finding seems to reflect that at the stage of mild cognitive impairment, considerable atrophy has already occurred in the hippocampus," said study author Henneman, "In people who already have Alzheimer's disease, the loss of nerve cells is more widespread throughout the brain."

"Regional measures of hippocampal atrophy are the strongest predictors of progression to Alzheimer's disease." the researchers concluded in the study.