On 17 June, an international team of researchers from the amyloid imaging to prevent Alzheimer’s disease (AMYPAD) project published a new paper titled “Amyloid-PET imaging predicts functional decline in clinically normal individuals” in the journal Alzheimer's Research & Therapy. There is good evidence that elevated amyloid-β (Aβ) positron emission tomography (PET) signal is associated with cognitive decline in clinically normal individuals. However, it is less well established whether there is an association between the Aβ burden and decline in daily living activities in this population.
In this study, authors used data from the AMYPAD Prognostic and Natural History Study, a large European amyloid-PET dataset phenotyping longitudinally individuals at risk of Alzheimer’s disease progression. The primary aim of the study was to assess the natural history of functional decline and relate it to individuals’ baseline Aβ burden. The authors concluded that amyloid-PET quantification supports the identification of clinically normal individuals at risk of functional decline. We would like to congratulate Lisa Quenon, first author of the paper and all authors who contributed to this work. One of the authors, Cindy Birck, is Project Officer at Alzheimer Europe and Alzheimer Europe is delighted to have been involved in authoring this article.