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For many years researchers have been trying to find out when brain changes, related with Alzheimer’s disease, begin in patients. Now, a new study has revealed these variations may occur as early as 6 months of age, Fov News reports.
In a new report published in JAMA Neurology, researchers have revealed that infants who carry the gene APOE-E4 – a variant associated with an increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease – also tend to have differences in brain development compared to children who don’t have the gene.
The gene is believed to play several different roles in the brain, but the mechanisms behind its involvement in Alzheimer’s disease are still not fully understood.
Senior author Sean Deoni, who oversees
In order to test their hypothesis, the researchers imaged the brains of 162 healthy infants between the ages of 2 months and 25 months. Each child was also given a DNA test which revealed that 60 of the infants carried the E4 gene variant, while the others had the E3 variant.
“What we found was that the E4 carriers laid this myelin sheath down really rapidly during the first 6 months of life and they have more myelin than E3 carriers,” Deoni said. “Then just after a year, the E3 carriers have caught up and then accelerated beyond the E4 carriers.”
Deoni noted that the results do not mean that the infants with APOE-E4 are destined to develop Alzheimer’s when they grow older. In fact, as the researchers continue to follow the babies' development, both the E3 and E4 carriers are performing similarly in terms of cognitive function and behavior. Instead, the study’s findings reveal more about the function of the E4 allele and how it may potentially relate to Alzheimer’s later on in life.
Now, these new findings indicate that brain changes associated with the disease may start as early as infancy.
