Links Found Between Leakages in Blood-Brain Barrier and Early Alzheimer’s Disease

The results of a new study using contrast-enhanced MRI show that the leakage rate in the blood-brain barrier of patients with early Alzheimer’s disease was significantly higher than in a healthy control group.

The Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB) allows nutrients into the brain, removes surplus substances, and prevents neurotoxins from entering the brain.


The study was published online in the June 2016, issue of the journal Radiology. The researchers used contrast-enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for the study, and recruited 16 patients with early Alzheimer’s and 17 healthy controls with matched ages. The researchers measured the leakage rates at the BBB and generated a histogram to help find how much brain tissue was leaking.

The results showed that the leakage rate was significantly higher in patients with Alzheimer’s compared to the controls, and occurred throughout the cerebrum. Alzheimer patients also had a significantly higher leakage of brain tissue in the gray matter, and in the cortex. The BBB in the white matter of the brain also showed a very subtle impairment. The researchers concluded that increased permeability of the BBB may be one of the key mechanisms in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Walter H. Backes, PhD, the author of the study, Maastricht University Medical Center (Maastricht, Netherlands), said, "Blood-brain barrier leakage means that the brain has lost its protective means, the stability of brain cells is disrupted and the environment in which nerve cells interact becomes ill-conditioned. These mechanisms could eventually lead to dysfunction in the brain. For Alzheimer's research, this means that a novel tool has become available to study the contribution of blood-brain barrier impairment in the brain to disease onset and progression in early stages or pre-stages of dementia."

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Maastricht University Medical Center