An IR Sant Pau study shows that PSMD, a metric obtained through diffusion magnetic resonance imaging, can characterize white matter abnormalities in both sporadic Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease associated with Down syndrome.

In people with Down syndrome, these changes are observed at around age 38, approximately 15 years before Alzheimer’s dementia typically becomes clinically apparent.

The findings, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, support the idea that white matter damage does not result from a single mechanism, but from the interaction between neurodegeneration, vascular abnormalities, and established disease biomarkers.

USC researchers have developed an approach that uses artificial intelligence to generate detailed maps that highlight differences in how distinct parts of the brain age. The new model also sheds light on how patterns of brain changes correlate with changes in cognitive function across the lifespan, according to a new USC study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.