With the aim of brining light upon the early signs that actuate dementia, a project based on brain imaging will be introduced by research teams from various countries. An investment of £1.9 million is said to be collected by the researchers of Dementia to analyze the initial changes in the brain related to diseases like Alzheimer’s.
This project is termed TriBEKa Consortium and will provide detailed information about the about the initial aspects of dementia and consists of research crew from three different countries that involve the Karolinska institute based in Sweden, the Barcelona Beta brain research Centre in Spain and the University of Edinburgh based in the UK. According to experts, signs that accelerate dementia are said to occur a lot before the actual signs can be determined, even though dementia is commonly related with old age. It is claimed that, considering these early signs are helpful in cultivating methods to deal with it before inevitable damage occurs.
The research crew is said to adopt the Position Emission Tomography method that scans the brain and encounters the existence of toxic chemicals that develop in the brain relating to dementia. In this process the Magnetic Resonance Imaging method is used to measure the structure of the brain. Patients aged between 45 to 60 will be a part of the study and will participate in assessments such as examining the history of their family, their lifestyle and tests related to memory following a three year follow-up. Reports suggest that every year 47 million people are affected by dementia globally and 9.9 million cases are determined every year.
Director of the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Dementia Prevention, Professor Craig Ritchie possess a belief that Dementia is a critical health affair and TriBEKa as a project will help determine the early signs that occur in a patient’s brain that may led to dementia, as the symptoms occur years before the actual signs.
With help of the Global Alzheimer's Association Interactive Network, which is known as a data-sharing podium, the data accumulated from the project will be made accessible to the community of global science. The provision of funds is made by an Alzheimer’s Association based in the United States and donations from an undisclosed international charitable foundation.