your brain is literally producing light right now and i need everyone to stop scrolling and absorb that for a second
a 2025 study put 20 people in a completely dark room with devices sensitive enough to detect a single photon, aimed them at their skulls, and confirmed that the human brain emits real measurable light that passes right through bone. they're calling the technique photoencephalography which is basically an EEG but for light instead of electricity, and honestly the name alone sounds like it belongs in a sci-fi novel.
but here's where it gets actually wild. the light patterns changed depending on what the person was thinking about. eyes open produced a different glow than eyes closed, listening to sounds lit up the temporal lobe differently than silence did, and the relationship between electrical brain activity and the light wasn't even a simple one-to-one thing. your brain apparently has this whole secondary communication layer happening in photons that we've just been completely blind to until now.
the light comes from your mitochondria, those little cellular power plants that use 20% of your entire body's energy just to keep your brain running. the chemical reactions that produce all that energy throw off tiny bursts of light as a byproduct, and some researchers think it might not even be waste, it might actually be how neurons talk to each other through something like biological fiber optics.
your skull is literally a lantern and nobody told you.
Brain pathways that control dopamine release may influence motor control
New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/brain-pathways-that-control-dopamine-release-may-influence-motor-control/
Brain pathways that control dopamine release may influence motor control
Within the human brain, movement is coordinated by a brain region called the striatum, which sends instructions to motor neurons in the brain. Those instructions are conveyed by two pathways, one that initiates movement (“go”) and one that suppresses it (“no-go”).
In a new study, MIT researchers have discovered an additional two pathways that arise in the striatum and appear to modulate the effects of the go and no-go pathways. These newly discovered pathways connect to dopamine-producing neurons in the brain — one stimulates dopamine release and the other inhibits it.
By controlling the amount of dopamine in the brain via clusters of neurons known as striosomes, these pathways appear to modify the instructions given by the go and no-go pathways. They may be especially involved in influencing decisions that have a strong emotional component, the researchers say.
“Among all the regions of the striatum, the striosomes alone turned out to be able to project to the dopamine-containing neurons, which we think has something to do with motivation, mood, and controlling movement,” says Ann Graybiel, an MIT Institute Professor, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the senior author of the new study.
Iakovos Lazaridis, a research scientist at the McGovern Institute, is the lead author of the paper, which appears today in the journal Current Biology.
New pathways
Graybiel has spent much of her career studying the striatum, a structure located deep within the brain that is involved in learning and decision-making, as well as control of movement.
Within the striatum, neurons are arranged in a labyrinth-like structure that includes striosomes, which Graybiel discovered in the 1970s. The classical go and no-go pathways arise from neurons that surround the striosomes, which are known collectively as the matrix. The matrix cells that give rise to these pathways receive input from sensory processing regions such as the visual cortex and auditory cortex. Then, they send go or no-go commands to neurons in the motor cortex.
However, the function of the striosomes, which are not part of those pathways, remained unknown. For many years, researchers in Graybiel’s lab have been trying to solve that mystery.
Their previous work revealed that striosomes receive much of their input from parts of the brain that process emotion. Within striosomes, there are two major types of neurons, classified as D1 and D2. In a 2015 study, Graybiel found that one of these cell types, D1, sends input to the substantia nigra, which is the brain’s major dopamine-producing center.
It took much longer to trace the output of the other set, D2 neurons. In the new Current Biology study, the researchers discovered that those neurons also eventually project to the substantia nigra, but first they connect to a set of neurons in the globus palladus, which inhibits dopamine output. This pathway, an indirect connection to the substantia nigra, reduces the brain’s dopamine output and inhibits movement.
The researchers also confirmed their earlier finding that the pathway arising from D1 striosomes connects directly to the substantia nigra, stimulating dopamine release and initiating movement.
“In the striosomes, we’ve found what is probably a mimic of the classical go/no-go pathways,” Graybiel says. “They’re like classic motor go/no-go pathways, but they don’t go to the motor output neurons of the basal ganglia. Instead, they go to the dopamine cells, which are so important to movement and motivation.”
Emotional decisions
The findings suggest that the classical model of how the striatum controls movement needs to be modified to include the role of these newly identified pathways. The researchers now hope to test their hypothesis that input related to motivation and emotion, which enters the striosomes from the cortex and the limbic system, influences dopamine levels in a way that can encourage or discourage action.
That dopamine release may be especially relevant for actions that induce anxiety or stress. In their 2015 study, Graybiel’s lab found that striosomes play a key role in making decisions that provoke high levels of anxiety; in particular, those that are high risk but may also have a big payoff.
“Ann Graybiel and colleagues have earlier found that the striosome is concerned with inhibiting dopamine neurons. Now they show unexpectedly that another type of striosomal neuron exerts the opposite effect and can signal reward. The striosomes can thus both up- or down-regulate dopamine activity, a very important discovery. Clearly, the regulation of dopamine activity is critical in our everyday life with regard to both movements and mood, to which the striosomes contribute,” says Sten Grillner, a professor of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who was not involved in the research.
Another possibility the researchers plan to explore is whether striosomes and matrix cells are arranged in modules that affect motor control of specific parts of the body.
“The next step is trying to isolate some of these modules, and by simultaneously working with cells that belong to the same module, whether they are in the matrix or striosomes, try to pinpoint how the striosomes modulate the underlying function of each of these modules,” Lazaridis says.
They also hope to explore how the striosomal circuits, which project to the same region of the brain that is ravaged by Parkinson’s disease, may influence that disorder.
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Saks-Kavanaugh Foundation, the William N. and Bernice E. Bumpus Foundation, Jim and Joan Schattinger, the Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research, Robert Buxton, the Simons Foundation, the CHDI Foundation, and an Ellen Schapiro and Gerald Axelbaum Investigator BBRF Young Investigator Grant.
In this short excerpt from our full interview, Professor Dennett explains why he believes that our human consciousness goes beyond the often-used "computer metaphor" of computationalism.
He sees consciousness as merely a kind of "user interface" of a "sequential, virtual machine" that is "inefficiently" implemented on the evolutionary, "parallel hardware" of the brain.
In his opinion, we have no direct access to the "hidden secrets in our brain". The brain could never understand its own complexity, what actually happens there.
More about this very interesting interview at: https://youtu.be/M2qiVz95ZYk
Interoception—the inner sense linking our bodies and minds—can confuse as much as it can reveal.
My husband worries a lot about his heart. “I feel something right here,” he’ll say, pointing to a spot on his chest. I have a hard time knowing how to respond to these reports; unless I’m doing cardio, I’m never aware of my heartbeat, and even then I can’t really feel it. After my husband’s cardiologist told him that there was nothing wrong with his heart, I figured that his fascination with it was just melodrama, or hypochondria.
Then I read a study by Sarah Garfinkel, a neuroscientist at University College London. Garfinkel monitored the heartbeats of twenty people who’d been diagnosed with autism, and also asked them to count the beats themselves. In a second study with sixty autistic individuals, she played a rhythmic, beeping tone and asked her subjects to say whether it was in synch with their pulses. At first, many people who’d declared themselves “good” at detecting their own heartbeats failed these tasks. But, as the tests went on, they improved. Some of the participants had reported having anxiety, and about a third of them said that, as they became better at detecting their heartbeats accurately, they also felt less anxious. My husband isn’t autistic, but he does experience anxiety, and Garfinkel’s study made me wonder whether he might be like some of her study participants. Maybe he was wrongly convinced that he was good at feeling his heartbeat, but also able to improve that sense—a change that could ease his worries.
Scientists call our ability to feel what’s happening inside our bodies interoception. A portmanteau of “interior” and “reception,” it differs from perception, which comes from our five senses, and proprioception, which tells us how we are oriented in space. Interoception is an inner sense having to do with our bodily processes. It can be divided into three rough categories. The first comprises feelings that break through into consciousness based on need; this is how we know when we need to pee or sleep or hydrate, and how we grasp that our hearts are racing after a good jump scare. The second encompasses the unconscious ways in which our brains and bodies communicate; our brains detect high glucose levels in our livers, for example, then release hormones that trigger our metabolisms, and we are unaware of the process. A vast number of these silent interoceptive processes are going on within us all the time.
The third category of interoception has to do with how our bodies and minds, together, sense and respond to the flow of events. On a recent Zoom call, Tim Dalgleish, a psychologist at the University of Cambridge, told me that the body is constantly delivering a set of signals—changes in our heart rates, breathing, digestion, and so on—that fluctuate along with the events we are encountering. It’s tempting to see the flow of information as one-way, from the mind to the body; we might understand an escalating heart rate, say, as a “reaction” to a feeling of nervousness. (An exam is placed on our desks, we grow nervous, and our hearts start racing in response.) But Dalgleish told me that it made more sense to think of the body and mind working synchronously as part of a single “prediction system.” “I don’t think we are ‘reacting’ to anything,” he said. Instead, we are constantly forecasting what is about to happen, with our bodies and minds contributing to that forecast. “There’s a mental component and a bodily component,” Dalgleish said. “They both happen at the same time.”
When we talk about “listening to our bodies” or “going with our guts,” we are often talking about this type of interoception. Close your eyes at any given moment, and you can gauge your over-all mood—good, bad, excited, tired, a bit down, or generally pleased. This mood combines what’s going on in your mind with how your organs, muscles, and nerves are embodying the moment. “Interoception is your ability to notice that signal,” Dalgleish said.
Not everyone is good at interpreting these interoceptive signals, and our abilities vary with our circumstances. In a 2010 study, Dalgleish and his collaborators asked ninety-two people to play a computer game derived from the Iowa gambling task, a psychological test designed to examine decision-making. The task entailed selecting the correct down-facing card from one of four decks, in hopes that it would match the color of an upturned card. Each correct choice earned the player some money. There were differences among the decks, but the game was designed so that it was impossible to figure them out within the time allotted. Still, in the course of a hundred turns, three-quarters of the participants got better at selecting the “profitable” deck of cards.
The point of the study was to see whether any bodily changes distinguished the people who improved from the ones who did not. While the subjects played, the researchers measured their heart rates and skin temperatures. They found that predictable bodily changes happened among those who got better at the game. Right before those subjects guessed, their hearts beat faster and their palms became sweaty; then they chose the right card. “People who were good at reading their bodies were the ones who did really well,” Dalgleish said. None of the players experienced themselves as being guided by these physical cues. Instead, they just went with their guts.
Why were some players more tuned into these signals than others? In 2022, Garfinkel and a colleague, Chatrin Suksasilp, provided one of the first comprehensive descriptions of how “listening to our bodies” might really work. First, they argued, come the various, often incremental somatic changes that happen continuously; our minds then translate these signals into a single feeling. The accuracy of this process, they wrote, can vary at every step. People with post-traumatic stress disorder, for instance, often experience racing hearts at moments that don’t seem to call for them; similar disproportionate responses often arise among people with other mental-health difficulties, or who are chronically stressed. Meanwhile, these signals form an amalgam that is funnelled into certain regions of the brain, such as the insular cortex and the dorsal mid-insula. “Some people have loads of activity in key areas, and other people don’t,” Garfinkel said—in other words, some people have stronger interoceptive signals.
And yet, even if you’re receiving a strong signal from your body, it can be inaccurate. Consistently perfect interoception is impossible: sometimes we listen to our hearts, but they have the wrong message; at other times, the message is right, but we don’t hear it. The body itself changes our capacity to listen. Garfinkel asked me to imagine an athlete who stays in the game while clearly injured: in a hyper-aroused state, she said, a person can become numb to pain. And interoception is complicated by the fact that it’s tightly tied to our personal experiences. Whatever happened to us in the past—a dangerous encounter with a stranger, a scary movie that made a big impression, time on the battlefield—alters how our bodies respond in the future. If a person’s responses are sufficiently shaped by such experiences, then listening to her body might lead her astray.
Given how easy it is for interoception to go wrong, it’s logical to wonder whether we can become better at getting it right. Some researchers are exploring ways to retrain our interoceptive responses. At the Laureate Institute for Brain Research, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sahib Khalsa, a psychiatrist, has been taking this approach with people who have eating disorders. Khalsa trained with Antonio Damasio, a neurologist who popularized the notion that our feelings are rooted in our bodies rather than our minds; in particular, Damasio’s somatic-marker hypothesis lays out the body-to-brain process by which visceral responses shape our decisions. Khalsa’s theory, essentially, is that eating disorders involve, among other things, a cycle of interoceptive mistranslation. A rumbling tummy should stimulate one’s appetite, not evoke fear; feeling full should be part of an over-all pleasant state, not turmoil. Eating disorders are complicated, with roots that extend far beyond the question of how good people are at listening to their bodies. But at least one study has found that people with anorexia perform poorly on interoceptive tests.
A therapist providing food-based interoceptive exposure might offer individuals with eating disorders a piece of chocolate in hopes that, over several sessions, that they will learn to taste and swallow it without becoming emotionally distraught. Khalsa works with one application of this therapy. “The goal is for you to learn to eat this without feeling uncomfortable,” Khalsa explained. He is also investigating the use of float tanks as a form of interoceptive therapy. In a study he published in 2020, twenty-three women with anorexia floated in sensory-deprivation chambers for ninety minutes at a time, once a week, for four weeks. They reported experiencing heightened awareness of their heartbeats and breathing, but not of their stomachs or digestive systems; many also reported feeling relaxed, energized, serene, and happy. (The study doesn’t connect any of these changes to shifts in eating habits.) Khalsa’s theory is that the tanks offer a kind of interoceptive training: if you get better at tracking your own heartbeat, you might get better at tracking your appetite as well. “If I followed a meal with a float . . . I could allow my food to digest without the discomfort of fullness,” Emily Noren writes, in “Unsinkable,” her memoir of overcoming an eating disorder with help from floating. “The float tank was my training wheels for digestion.”
Finally, in work published last month in Nature Communications, Khalsa is exploring the use of a tiny, motorized capsule that vibrates when it reaches the digestive system. People with eating disorders often complain of feeling full or bloated even when they haven’t consumed food; Khalsa thinks that, by practicing sensing the motor, they may be able to retrain their gastrointestinal interoception. The tiny motor creates an opportunity to recognize a real physical sensation in the gut. By distinguishing real from imagined, a person might establish an interoceptive connection that more accurately communicates the state of the body.
Last year, Garfinkel and her colleague, Camilla Nord, at the University College Cambridge, published an overview of how interoception might be used to treat many mental-health conditions. They drew on numerous studies elucidating the connection between interoceptive accuracy and emotions. (People who are better at detecting their heartbeats are also better at regulating negative emotions, for example.) The researchers point out that many therapies that are already in use are also a form of interoceptive intervention: for instance, a single dose of citalopram—a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor prescribed for depression and other mood disorders—enhanced the confidence people had in their correct interoceptive judgments. In other words, they had more insight into what their bodies were doing.
One of the lessons of interoception research, however, is that access and accuracy don’t necessarily go together. Just because we have a bad feeling doesn’t make it right. It’s unwise to assume that increasing people’s interoceptive curiosity will solve their problems. It could be that “you’re just training them to read a signal that’s actually giving them really bad information,” Dalgleish said; it can even be useful for someone to be “trained to ignore their body.” Garfinkel told me that “people with anxiety and depression attend too much to the body.” Data show that people with panic disorders are often hyperaware of their heartbeats. The psychologists Karen Quigley and Lisa Feldman Barrett, who study emotion at Northeastern University, hypothesize that depression stems in part from a “locked-in” brain—a situation in which we fail to account for the possibility that our interoceptive interpretation might be wrong. “If I feel so awful and I can’t see an explanation in the outside world, then that might mean that there’s something wrong with me,” Quigley told me, explaining the mind-set. “There’s this kind of closing inward.” When such a dynamic is ruling a person’s mind, increasing interoceptive awareness isn’t going to help. It may help more to learn to let in the external world.
In 1998, two researchers from the University of Pittsburgh conducted a study in which participants sat at a table with one arm hidden beyond a screen. The researchers set out a fake arm in its place, orienting it so that it appeared to have replaced the real arm, then proceeded to lightly stroke the surface of both arms with a paintbrush. Participants reported what came to be known as the rubber-hand illusion: they could feel the brush even as it touched the fake arm. Years later, psychologists from the U.K. and Italy wanted to see how interoception factored into the trick. In the experiment, people who were better at sensing their cardiac rhythms turned out to be less likely to “embody” the rubber hand—that is, to perceive it as their own limb.
Interoception can help us see ourselves more clearly. The paradox is that it may be at its most accurate when it is, in itself, invisible. In 2021, the National Institutes of Health awarded eighteen million dollars to seven five-year projects focussed on the unconscious pathways linking the body and the brain. And, in 2022, the N.I.H. issued a special call for research centered on interoception as part of cancer prevention. Tumors consume an enormous amount of energy; it’s possible that, by tapping into the brain’s metabolic interoception, we might detect them early. Yet this research concentrates on interoception that is totally unconscious; there is no funding for work investigating whether a person can sense these metabolic changes with her conscious mind. The unconscious signals are often the trustworthy ones. The complications begin when we try to listen in and understand what we’re hearing. We’re urged, for all sorts of reasons, to listen to our hearts. But a life looking inward isn’t necessarily a life well lived. “You don’t want to be focussed too much on the body,” Garfinkel said. “You want to be focussed on the world.” ♦
Cognitive neuroscience is a multidisciplinary field that seeks to understand the complex interplay between the brain, cognition, and behaviour. It merges principles from psychology, neuroscience, and computer science to explore the neural mechanisms underlying various cognitive processes.
1. The Fundamentals of Cognitive Neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience aims to unravel the mysteries of the mind by studying how neural activity gives rise to cognitive functions such as perception, memory, language, and decision-making. By examining brain structure and function using advanced imaging techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG), researchers can map cognitive processes onto specific brain regions.
2. Neural Basis of Perception and Sensation
Perception and sensation are fundamental processes through which organisms interpret and make sense of the world around them. Cognitive neuroscience investigates how sensory information is processed in the brain, from the initial encoding of sensory stimuli to higher-order perceptual processes that shape our conscious experience of the world.
3. Memory Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval
Memory is a cornerstone of cognition, allowing us to retain and retrieve information from past experiences. Cognitive neuroscience examines the neural mechanisms underlying memory encoding, storage, and retrieval, shedding light on how memories are formed, consolidated, and recalled. This research has implications for understanding memory disorders and developing strategies to enhance memory function.
4. Language Processing and Communication
Language is a uniquely human ability that plays a central role in communication and social interaction. Cognitive neuroscience investigates how language is processed in the brain, from the comprehension of spoken and written words to the production of speech and the interpretation of linguistic meaning. By studying language disorders like aphasia, researchers gain insights into the neural basis of language processing.
5. Decision-Making and Executive Function
Decision-making is a complex cognitive process that involves weighing multiple options, evaluating potential outcomes, and selecting the most appropriate course of action. Cognitive neuroscience explores the neural circuits involved in decision-making and executive function, including areas of the prefrontal cortex responsible for cognitive control, planning, and goal-directed behaviour.
6. Emotion Regulation and Affective Neuroscience
Emotions play a crucial role in shaping our thoughts, behaviours, and social interactions. Affective neuroscience investigates the neural basis of emotion processing, regulation, and expression, shedding light on how emotions are represented in the brain and influence decision-making, memory, and social behaviour. This research has implications for understanding mood disorders and developing interventions to promote emotional well-being.
7. Neuroplasticity and Brain Plasticity
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s remarkable ability to reorganize and adapt in response to experience, learning, and environmental changes. Cognitive neuroscience examines the mechanisms underlying neuroplasticity, from synaptic plasticity at the cellular level to large-scale changes in brain connectivity and function. Understanding neuroplasticity has implications for rehabilitation after brain injury and for enhancing cognitive function throughout the lifespan.
8. Applications of Cognitive Neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience findings have far-reaching applications in fields such as education, healthcare, technology, and beyond. By elucidating the neural mechanisms underlying cognition and behaviour, cognitive neuroscience informs the development of interventions for cognitive enhancement, rehabilitation therapies for neurological disorders, and technological innovations like brain-computer interfaces.
9. Future Directions and Challenges
As technology advances and our understanding of the brain grows, cognitive neuroscience continues to evolve. Future research may focus on integrating data from multiple levels of analysis, from genes to behaviour, to gain a comprehensive understanding of brain function. Challenges in cognitive neuroscience include navigating ethical considerations, addressing methodological limitations, and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle complex questions about the mind and brain.
Conclusion
Cognitive neuroscience offers a fascinating window into the inner workings of the human mind, exploring the neural basis of cognition, perception, emotion, and behaviour. By combining insights from psychology, neuroscience, and computational modelling, cognitive neuroscience continues to unravel the mysteries of the brain, paving the way for advances in education, healthcare, and technology.
FAQs
1. What careers are available in cognitive neuroscience?
Cognitive neuroscience opens doors to various career paths, including research, academia, clinical practice, and industry roles in technology and healthcare.
2. How does cognitive neuroscience differ from traditional neuroscience?
While traditional neuroscience focuses on the structure and function of the brain, cognitive neuroscience specifically investigates how these processes give rise to cognitive functions like perception, memory, and language.
3. Can cognitive neuroscience help improve mental health treatments?
Yes, cognitive neuroscience provides insights into the neural mechanisms underlying mental health disorders, leading to more effective treatments and interventions.
4. Is cognitive neuroscience only relevant to humans?
No, cognitive neuroscience research extends to other species, providing valuable insights into the evolution of cognitive processes across different organisms.
5. How can I get involved in cognitive neuroscience research as a student?
Many universities offer undergraduate and graduate programs in cognitive neuroscience, allowing students to pursue research opportunities and gain hands-on experience in the field.
Alzheimer's Disease: biomarkers and neuroimaging markers cheatsheet for research articles
As Alzheimer's Disease (AD) research skews toward understanding the brain than the pathogenic proteins, studies exploring biomarkers and neuroimaging are hopeful toward developing a method for successful prevention of AD. A biomarker is a molecule, whose presence indicates abnormality or disease, and thus, is crucial in diagnostic procedures. Levels of certain molecules is notably altered in cerebrospinal fluid and in blood plasma, which helps in diagnosing the occurrence of AD. Neuroimaging involves the use of techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography to observe neuronal activity in the brain. This is good news, especially for AD, as the asymptomatic stage of the disease can be identified early enough.
Although the exact function and involvement in clinical practice is not profuse, altered concentrations of these biomarkers in plasma or cerebrospinal fluid encourage further research:
Amyloid and tau serve as the unsurprising biomarkers of AD pathology.
Neurofilament-light chain (NF-L) and visinin-like protein-1 (VILIP-1) are the most promising biomarkers of neuronal injury.
Post-synaptic protein neurogranin (Ng) and pre-synaptic proteins synaptosome-associated protein-25 (SNAP-25) and synaptotagmin-1 (Syt-1) are considered major biomarkers of synaptic injury.
Brain and CSF levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and increased levels of interleukin group of proteins (ILs) indicate intensified microglial response to neuroinflammation.
TREM2 receptor and YKL-40 glycoprotein are also reliable indicators of inflammation and impaired clearance of amyloid beta.
Heart-type fatty acid-binding protein (hFABP) could be a marker for pathology in blood vessels supplying the brain. Some vascular markers also show potential as markers of vascular injury in AD: von Willebrand factor (vWF) and monokine induced by γ-interferon (MIG, also known as CXCL-9).
Concentrations of TAR-DNA binding protein (TDP-43) in the brain and plasma and serum indicate, even contribute to, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and neuronal/synaptic injury in AD.
Neuroimaging techniques reveal structural, functional, and diffusion-related activities of the neurons. To identify them, markers are tracked in images obtained. Each marker is determined with the activity and biochemistry of the group of/individual neurons being studied.
Structural MRI will show location and severity of atrophy which can be identified in grey scale images by applying programs that create analogous color grading.
Functional MRI relies on blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal which reflects changes in blood oxygenation levels in response to neural activity.
Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) focuses on diffusion of water molecules. A tensor model is applied to images obtained from DWI. The diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics thus obtained help in studying connectivity through structural integrity of white matter tracts.
Tractography involves 3-D reconstruction of white matter as observed in DWI, which provides a more detailed look into a patient’s neural networks.
In positron emission tomography (PET), markers are identified and labelled so their features or functions can be traced during this procedure to obtain a resulting PET scan. The imaging procedure is named according to its marker: amyloid-PET, tau-PET, FDG-PET, inflammation-PET, receptor-PET.
FDA approved drugs Galantamine, Rivastigmine, and Donepezil alleviate symptoms such as memory loss and confusion in mild to moderate AD, although their effects seem to be negligible. They also cause nausea and vomiting as side effects and are not suitable for every patient. Recently approved drugs, Aducanumab and Lecanemab focus on removing accumulated amyloid. Their effectiveness is still doubted on the basis of studies finding that targeting amyloid has little to do with curbing the actual progression of the disease.
bibliography -
Tarawneh R. Biomarkers: our path towards a cure for Alzheimer disease. Biomarker insights. 2020 Nov;15:1177271920976367.
Cavedo E, Lista S, Khachaturian Z, Aisen P, Amouyel P, Herholz K, Jack Jr CR, Sperling R, Cummings J, Blennow K, O’Bryant S. The road ahead to cure Alzheimer’s disease: development of biological markers and neuroimaging methods for prevention trials across all stages and target populations. The journal of prevention of Alzheimer's disease. 2014 Dec;1(3):181.
Medications for Alzheimer's Disease Stanford Healthcare. Accessed 21-04-2023.
