MRIs are a brilliant piece of modern medicine that give us a picture of our body’s insides – organs, bones, nerves, and soft tissue. Now, scientists have made them even more useful by successfully transforming an MRI from a diagnostic camera into a device that can record changes in the biological makeup of brain tissue. Meaning, it can show us the molecular makeup of our body parts!

This advance could help doctors more quickly determine the onset of disease and begin treatment. It will clarify whether a patient is merely aging or developing a neurodegenerative disease, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. The research has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

A team of researchers led by Dr. Aviv Mezer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI)’s Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences successfully transformed an MRI into a diagnostic camera which serves as a device that can record changes in the biological makeup of brain tissue.

“Instead of images, our quantitative MRI model provides molecular information about the brain tissue we’re studying. This could allow doctors to compare brain scans taken over time from the same patient, and to differentiate between healthy and diseased brain tissue, without resorting to invasive or dangerous procedures, such as brain tissue biopsies.”

When you look at someone in person, the signs of aging are obvious – i.e. gray hair, a stooped spine, wrinkled skin, occasional memory loss, etc. However, what really matters is what’s going on upstairs, in the brain. Is that occasional forgetfulness normal or something to worry about? That can only be seen on the biological level. Normal aging and neurodegenerative diseases both create biological “footprints” in the brain. These “footprints” change the lipid and protein content of brain tissue.

Current MRI scans can only provide pictures of the human brain making it difficult to see the jeopardous biological changes. This new technique, on the other hand, provides biological readouts of brain tissue – the ability to see what’s going on on a molecular level and to direct a course of treatment accordingly.

Ph.D. student Shir Filo who worked on the study said:

“When we take a blood test, it shows us the exact number of white blood cells in our body and whether that number is higher than normal due to illness. MRI scans provide images of the brain but don’t show changes in the composition of the human brain, changes that could potentially differentiate normal aging from the beginnings of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.”

Mezer presumes that in the future, the new MRI technique will also provide a crucial understanding of how our brains age. He explained:

“When we scanned young and old patients’ brains, we saw that different brain areas ages differently. For example, in some white-matter areas, there is a decrease in brain tissue volume, whereas in the gray-matter, tissue volume remains constant. However, we saw major changes in the molecular makeup of the gray matter in younger versus older subjects.”

With technology like this available, patients will be able to get an MRI that has the adequacy of distinguishing molecular signs of normal aging from the early signs of disease. The day is soon coming where people will receive a correct diagnosis earlier and therefore be able to start treatment earlier. Those people will be able to maintain an improved quality of life for a longer time, all via a non-invasive technique, and that’s a beautiful thing!

This article (New MRI Technique Can See Changes In Brain’s Molecular Composition) was originally created for Intelligent Living and is published here under Creative Commons.

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