Imaging Markers of Blood Clotting in the Alzheimer's Disease Brain

In this project, researchers will use lab models to track how tiny blood clots develop in Alzheimer’s disease brains and develop imaging tools to identify them.

Blood clot risk has been identified in the brains of some people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. The tiny clots that result may serve as a marker of the disease and offer a target for clot-inhibiting treatments, highlighting this feature as a largely overlooked and potentially treatable factor in Alzheimer’s disease.

Using lab models, Marta Casquero-Veiga, PhD, and her colleagues will follow the development of these tiny clots, using new neuroimaging tools. They have developed a novel radio-isotope tracer that homes to clotting factors in the brain. The researchers will follow the nanoradiotracer using a combination of PET and MRI imaging techniques.

The tracers will highlight both the location of clotting-related factors and the process of clotting. Dr. Casquero-Viega and her team expect the results to characterize a potential tool for diagnosing early Alzheimer’s disease and a target for treatments that could slow disease progression.

NIPAD seeks to address the diagnosis of one of the most unknown and potentially treatable factors of AD, the pro-coagulant context, by developing new neuroimaging tools to early detect it in vivo. The main proposal’s novelty lies on its use of innovative pre-targeting nanoradiotracers, and the combination of PET and MRI imaging techniques to provide both functional and anatomical information. Overall, NIPAD pursues to provide clinicians with non-invasive diagnostic tools that allow them to prescribe treatments based on each patient’s individual pathology, thereby slowing AD’s progression.

Accurate diagnostic tools are crucial to identify the specific factors driving AD pathogenesis in each patient and provide effective individualized treatments. Our innovative neuroimaging biomarker will allow the early identification of AD patients with a pro-coagulant state, enabling antithrombotic therapy to be prescribed personalized to those who could benefit, hence delaying AD’s progression. This non-invasive, highly precise approach has significant clinical impact, with broad social and economic implications, as even a modest delay in AD onset could reduce 23 million cases by 2050.