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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		A PET scan study reveals early signs of Alzheimer's disease
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:02
	Publish Date:		2016-03-21 00:00:00
	Description:		For the first time, a team of scientists has shown that PET scans can reveal details of proteins in the brain that can track the progressive stages of Alzheimer’s disease in cognitively normal adults. "We can now very reliably and with a great deal of accuracy say that there are changes in the brain during life that are very highly predictive that a person’s going to have Alzheimer’s." That’s study leader Dr. William Jagust of the University of California, Berkeley. He explains that aside from tracking beta-amyloid deposits, which for years has been known as a hallmark of Alzheimer’s, they can see the build-up of tau protein, which has emerged within the last decade as a major player in the development of symptoms. Before, this was only measured through post-mortem analysis. "If we can look at people, say before they have dementia, and we know how much amyloid in the brain and how much tau is in the brain, we might be able to get a sense of their stage or their progression towards Alzheimer’s disease and that may be crucially important for when we give them certain kinds of medications."
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