Early Detection of Amyloid ß Pathology in Alzheimer's Disease by Molecular MRI.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a degenerative brain disease and the most common cause of dementia. Early stage ß-amyloid oligomers (AßOs) and late stage Aß plaques are the pathological hallmarks of AD brains. AßOs are known to be more neurotoxic and contribute to neuronal damage. Most current approaches are focused on detecting Aß plaques, which occurs at the late stage of AD, and are limited by poor sensitivity and/or contrast agent toxicity. In previous studies, we developed a new curcumin-conjugated magnetic nanoparticle (Cur-MNPs) to target the Aß pathologies. In this study, we investigate the in vivo feasibility of this novel Cur-MNPs to detect Aß pathologies at the early and late stages of AD in transgenic AD mice and perform immunohistochemical examinations to validate the specific targeting of various form of Aß pathologies.