Understanding the pathophysiology of memory and cognitive deficits
Dementia is defined as a decline in mental ability severe enough to interfere with daily life is a leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting approximately 58 million people globally, with estimates suggesting a tripling by 2050. Also, dementia is a broad term that covers diverse neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (60-70%), vascular dementia (VD) (10-20%), frontotemporal dementia (FTD) (10%) of cases followed by other subtypes such as Prion and Huntington’s disease. Both memory and cognition can be affected chronically and acutely based on various underlying mechanisms
The global challenge: Can we detect dementia even in presymptomatic stages?
In general, AD and related pathologies are progressive disorders whose pathophysiological processes can commence nearly 20 years before the decline in cognitive abilities becomes visible, such as confusion in time/place, problems completing usual tasks, struggling with vocabulary, losing things more often, increased anxiety, loss of insight and withdrawal from social life. In particular, AD pathology is manifested in a broad range from clinically asymptomatic to severe cognitive deficits and is a multifaceted process moving along a continuum rather than in distinct clinical stages. Hence, there is a timely need to develop new methodologies aimed at early detection of dementia in a non-invasive and cost-effective manner before it gradually destroys memory and cognition in individuals.
The Approach at Empa for Early Detection of Dementia
Our approach is to combine blood-based nanoscopic detection and wearables-based monitoring of neurocognitive disorders to investigate the correlation of blood-based protein biomarkers at the protein level to changes in parameters at the systemic physiological level. Our approach is aimed at delivering a multi-scale and multi-modal platform for identifying people at risk of dementia, monitoring disease progression at regular intervals in a patient-specific manner, testing the efficiency of lifestyle-induced improvements in the health status, and testing the efficiency of combined physical-cognitive training regimes and the prescribed treatment as new drugs become available.
Combinatorial approach at Empa for early detection of dementia
To validate the new methodologies, we are developing at Empa for early detection of neurodegenerative disease and identify decline in cognitive and memory abilities of individuals, we work closely with clinicians at the memory clinic in St Gallen (KSSG) and neurologists at the University Hospital Zurich.
We thank the Synapsis Dementia Foundation, the Lazarus-Stiftung Foundation Sanare, and Theodor Naegeli-Stiftung for their generous support of our work aimed at early detection of dementia.