ABSTRACT
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent reason for dementia in people aged 60 years and above. The main clinical feature of AD is a progressive loss of memory succeeded by further impairment of cognitive domains and distinctive atrophy of the cortical and hippocampal areas. In autopsy evidence of the histopathological feature of senile amyloid plaques, neuritic plaques, intraneuronal tau fibrillary tangles and cerebral amyloid angiopathy are frequently observed in AD brains. A critical intent of biomedical research in recent decades in the domain of neurodegenerative diseases has been to standardize and establish potential indexes of AD during the preclinical stage for preliminary diagnosis and the early intervention of patients. Several studies have been conducted with specific pharmacological probes or molecular radiotracers for setting up biomarkers for AD. Striking age-related and neurodegenerative anomalies such as structural variance, functional variance and pathological tissue depositions are the specific targets for neuroimaging. In this chapter, different neuroimaging approaches for the development of novel biomarkers for AD are discussed with the probable medical advantages and limitations.
