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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

iron, biomarker, Alzheimer's disease, Fe

College

Life Sciences

Department

Physiology and Developmental Biology

Abstract

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is one of the highest causes of death in the United States. After the age of 65, the chance of getting Alzheimer’s doubles every five years. As the average lifespan of Americans increases, the importance of understanding AD and finding more efficient ways to treat it increases as well. The earlier AD is treated, the more effectively we are able to treat it. Non-heme iron (Fe) has been shown to spatially correlate with Abeta. Since Fe causes a signal dropout in susceptibility-weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), this imaging modality could possibly be used as a way to detect Abeta in the brain. The purpose of our research was to confirm that iron correlated spatially to Abeta in the entorhinal cortex. Also, we wanted to see if HP-tau also correlated to iron in the entorhinal cortex. If tau is shown to co-localize to iron, this may be a potential way to detect AD in its earliest stages. Also, we needed more data and images to further Dr. Wisco’s previous research.

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