Stanford Scientists Discover Hidden Brain Patterns Linked to Alzheimer’s Risk
Stanford Medicine researchers found that subtle brain activity patterns in cognitively healthy adults were linked to later cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s diagnoses. The patterns also identified people more likely to maintain their abilities, though researchers have not tested whether changing brain activity can prevent decline.
Stanford Medicine researchers found that subtle brain activity patterns in cognitively healthy adults were linked to later cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease diagnoses, in findings published November 4 in Science Advances.
The patterns may point to risk years before memory problems or the buildup of harmful proteins appear.
The researchers also found brain activity associated with resilience: people whose patterns resembled those of “super agers” were more likely to maintain cognitive abilities and avoid the outcomes tracked in the study.
The team examined adults aged 75 and older with sharply different cognitive profiles: people with Alzheimer’s disease and super agers, whose memories remained comparable to those of people decades younger. Researchers used those differences to build a scoring system, then assessed cognitively healthy adults between 55 and 70.
Participants whose brain patterns more closely resembled those of people with Alzheimer’s were more likely to experience cognitive decline, accumulate amyloid-beta plaques and receive an Alzheimer’s diagnosis during follow-up periods extending up to 12 years.
The scoring system predicted future decline more effectively than several established indicators, including demographic characteristics, genetic risk factors, and amyloid-beta and tau biomarkers. The approach examines how different brain regions communicate.
“We want to address a major challenge in the Alzheimer's field nowadays -- most studies are looking at well-known Alzheimer's disease biomarkers, such as amyloid-beta or tau. But those are observable at relatively late stages of the disease,” said senior study author Yu Zhang, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medicine.
“What we really care about is defining early markers that can detect earlier signs of cognitive decline and potentially help us deliver timely interventions to people,” Zhang said.
Zhang said future research could explore whether treatments can shift brain activity toward patterns linked with resilience. Possible approaches include cognitive training and transcranial magnetic stimulation, which uses magnetic pulses to influence brain activity.
Neither approach has been tested in this context to prevent cognitive decline. Researchers also do not know whether changing brain activity would alter the course of Alzheimer’s disease.
“There are two main components: One is to know which part of the brain to target, the other is how we should change it,” Zhang said. “That's why identifying the super-ager brain resilience pattern is a critical component -- so we know what a good pattern should be.”
For this study, super agers were at least 75 years old and performed on memory tests at a level typical of a 45-year-old, while maintaining normal executive function for their age.
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