(NewsNation) — A new blood test may tell individuals if Alzheimer’s disease symptoms are imminent, according to research.
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, found that certain circular RNAs, or circRNAs, can strongly indicate if symptoms are coming. Researchers say the specific RNAs in the blood nearly tripled patients’ risk of developing symptoms.
“In a clinical setting, being able to identify patients on the verge of symptom onset would be invaluable,” said Dr. Richard Hodes, director of NIH’s National Institute on Aging. “Having this information could help us select the right patients for clinical trials and better determine which treatments are effective at preventing cognitive decline.
Researchers analyzed blood data from over 1,200 participants from several independent groups, discovering a set of 34 circRNAs that were connected with the disease. They noted that predictive models for the set of circRNAs identified individuals with the disease’s pathology, the same as models trained on protein pTau217 data.
Protein pTau217 data is the leading clinical blood-based biomarker for Alzheimer’s.
“Patients being treated with novel Aβ-removal therapies, can become pTau negative but still have Alzheimer’s disease,” added Dr. Carlos Cruchaga. “These circular RNAs may grant us a more complete perspective of someone’s overall disease biology.”
Current blood tests for Alzheimer’s offer stable diagnoses by detecting markers of amyloid plaques, which resemble sticky clumps of protein that gather slowly in the brain.
A previous study by Cruchaga and others revealed that circRNAs in the brain were linked to dementia and neuropathological severity.
Source: NewsNation
