A combination of PET and MRI scans suggests that people with traumatic brain injury (TBI) may have buildup of the plaques related to Alzheimer's disease in their brains, according to a new study published online February 3 in Neurology.
Researchers from Imperial College London performed PET and MRI in nine people with an average age of 44 who had a single moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury. The brain injuries occurred between 11 months and up to 17 years before the start of the study. The participants were compared with 10 people with Alzheimer's disease and nine healthy participants.
PET was used to detect plaques in the brain, while diffusion-tensor MR imaging (DTI-MRI) visualized damage to brain cells that occurs after TBI.
Patients with brain injuries and those with Alzheimer's disease had plaques in the posterior cingulate cortex, which is affected early in Alzheimer's; however, only people with brain injuries had plaques in the cerebellum. The researchers also found increased plaque accumulation in patients with more damage to the brain's white matter.
The findings suggest that plaques are triggered by a different mechanism after a traumatic brain injury, and that the damage to the brain's white matter at the time of the injury may act as a trigger for plaque production, noted senior author David Sharp, PhD, and colleagues.
If future studies can confirm a link between brain injury and later Alzheimer's disease, neurologists may be able to find prevention and treatment strategies to address the disease earlier, according to the authors.
