NPAD · Multiregional rtfMRI Neurofeedback for the Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-05-01 → 2018-05-13
- EU contribution
- €158,122
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
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Results in brief
Multiregional rtfMRI Neurofeedback for the Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer's Disease poses one of the biggest health challenges of our time. More than 10 million people are currently affected by dementia in Europe and by 2030 the number of new cases is going to surpass 13 million. Due to demented patients’ need for continuous support during several years, the sustainability of the European healthcare infrastructure is at stake. Once symptoms such as memory impairment and brain atrophy become apparent, the disease is already too advanced. The majority of future cases are already affected by the silent stage of the disease, however current methods for detecting the pathological hallmarks of the disease are invasive and therefore unsuitable for screening the ageing population at large. At the Barcelonabeta Brain Research Center, with the support of the European Commission, we have initiated a study that aims to revolutionize the way that we assess risk for Alzheimer's and other neuropsychiatric conditions. We have combined two new technologies, virtual reality and neurofeedback, to create a kind of game that you can play inside the MRI scanner. This game is not controlled by any buttons or movements but instead it is controlled by the activity and the changes of the activity of your brain. The data obtained during the experiment, analysed in relation to existing biomarkers, reveal important information regarding preclinical alterations in brain function. In brief, we have developed a new method for probing brain function to obtain subtle metrics that correspond with well-established cognitive and biological processes. Our aim is to develop future diagnostic applications that are not only safe but also enjoyable for the patients, in order to facilitate scalability and early prevention.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This project aims at predicting early cognitive decline using a neurofeedback performance endophenotype based on realtime functional magnetic resonance imaging in a population at risk for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). It has been proven that AD biomarkers change decades before the development of symptoms. In addition, there is a lack of robust hypersensitive methods capable of predicting impending cognitive decline in healthy subjects at risk. This constitutes a crucial obstacle for the implementation of AD prevention trials. To address this, we will identify and characterize a novel neurofeedback performance endophenotype in a subsample from a cohort of 2743 cognitively healthy volunteers at risk for AD. This will be based on state-of-the-art neuroimaging technology, in combination with a novel sensitive neuropsychological test that detects subtle alterations in episodic memory, which has been validated for our cohort. Then, we will evaluate the impact on our newly developed neurofeedback performance endophenotype of factors known to be related to AD such as various clinical and lifestyle variables, amyloid deposition, genetic background (including, but not restricted to APOE4) and most importantly cognitive reserve. A specific aim is to test the hypothesis that neurofeedback performance can become a reliable proxy to measure cognitive reserve. Finally, we will develop a novel statistical predictive model, featuring all the relevant genetic and clinical variables and will assess the capacity of neurofeedback performance for predicting impending cognitive decline during a two-year period in AD descendants.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- FUNDACIO BARCELONABETA BRAIN RESEARCH CENTER · BarcelonaCoordinatorSpain
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/707730
- http://fpmaragall.org/en/pioneering-neurofeedback-to-understand-alzheimers/
Data: CORDIS, © European Union