Imaging Exposes Alzheimer's-Like Plaque in the Human Brain

Beta-amyloid plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer's type dementia can be spotted with the aid of the imaging agent Pittsburgh Compound B, researchers here determined.The distribution of amyloid plaques seen on positron emission tomography imaging with the tracer compound closely correlated with that discovered post-mortem in a 76-year-old man with Lewy body dementia, reported Brian J. Bacskai, Ph.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues.
The findings provide confirmation that when investigators thought they were seeing amyloid deposition and distribution on PET scan images, they really were, the authors wrote in the March issue of the Archives of Neurology.
"What it says is that if you see positive Pittsburgh Compound B, you're going to find that that person has amyloid pathology in their brain, and that's a valuable first step," said co-author Steven T. DeKosky, M.D., director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh, in an interview.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/AlzheimersDisease/dh/5234