NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Mar 17 - Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), researchers have been able to identify metabolic abnormalities in the brains of individuals with a near-100% risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the future.

Further studies, however, are needed to determine if such testing holds value in predicting the more common sporadic AD, according to the report in the March 14th issue of Neurology.

Dr. M. N. Rossor, from the Dementia Research Centre at the Institute of Neurology in London, and colleagues performed MRS on seven asymptomatic subjects with presenilin 1 or amyloid precursor protein mutations that virtually guaranteed a future diagnosis of AD. Six healthy age- and sex-matched subjects served as controls.

Several metabolic changes in the posterior cingulate were seen in the mutation carriers compared with controls. Moreover, the magnitude of the changes seemed to correlate with the predicted age of AD onset, based on family history.

"More detailed knowledge of how these metabolite derangements reflect cellular abnormalities and their progression with time would aid our understanding of the sequence of pathologic changes in AD," the investigators conclude.