The Idea Of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ( Fmri )

In times past many people thought that memory loss was a normal occurrence for elderly people. This thinking was major reason for why Alzheimer’s disease was not caught until very later in the stages. Alzheimer’s disease is not a normal part of aging. After heart disease, cancer, and strokes, Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of death in adults in the Western world. “It is estimated that 4.5 million Americans over the age of 65 are affected with this condition. After the age of 65, the incidence of the disease doubles every five years and, by age 85, it will affect nearly half of the population” (Robinson).

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a form of degenerative, fatal dementia, is characterized by progressive cognitive decline. While AD is the most common form of dementia, its prevalence has only recently been recognized. When Alois Alzheimer first described the sequence of changes in 1907, physicians believed the disease to be an extremely rare, mid-life condition. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that the same types of changes were shown to occur in both late- and early-onset forms (Cavanaugh et.al. 2008). As such, almost all knowledge of AD has been learned within the past several decades, with new discoveries being reported almost daily. It is now estimated that Alzheimer’s accounts for as many as 60% of all dementias and affects more than 500,000

Alzheimer’s disease is seen as deterioration in intellectual abilities as a result of degeneration within several regions of the

Imagine a football player is tackled and hits the back of his head. As a result, his brain has hit the back of the cranium, then the front.

The brain can be considered the most complex organ in the body and the centrepiece of the nervous system. Although the brain works as a unified whole, neuroscientists have identified areas within it that perform specific functions. This makes the brain interconnected by three different layers: the central core, the limbic system, and the cerebral cortex. All of which contain structures that regulate everyday life and psychological function.

Some people like sweet things and others don’t , or some people may like sports and others won’t. Our brain tells us what we like and don’t like by controlling our emotions, it does this with the Cerebrum or by using our genes.

As adults age their executive functioning start to slow down. The structural changes in the prefrontal cortex

Throughout history there have been reports of decreased memory and mental deterioration that accompanied old age. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) was named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer who described the symptoms in a woman in Germany in the 1907 but it was not until the 1970’s that AD was considered to be a major disorder and AD continues to be a major health concern worldwide (Reger, 2002).

Age-related declines are not constant across brain regions. Moreover, patterns of brain aging differs among individuals. Post mortem (PM) studies cannot help in assessment of brain tissue and its components. Moreover, PM cannot provide information on dynamic process of adult brain development, and its connection with brain structure and function. MRI helps in in-vivo measurements of the brain. It was realized that there is cortical thinning as age progresses. . Some studies of cortical thickness failed to replicate stability of the primary sensory regions (e.g., calcarine cortex) (Fjell et al., 2009; Salat et al., 2004) while others found that cortical thinning in frontal and parietal lobes exceed that of the temporal and occipital regions (Thambisetty et al., 2010). It is suggested that myelin is related to shrinkage in cerebral cortex or responsible for loss of cortical volume. MRI has helped evaluate leukoaraiosis which is a change in white matter integrity that is displayed on a T2-weighted MR image as a high signal intensity area. This area is defined as white matter hyperintensities (WMH) which depicts pathological processes such as ischemic lesions, gliosis, axonal degeneration, loss of myelin, microinfarcts, and expansion of perivascular spaces (de Leeuw et al., 2001; Pantoni, 1998). WHM is observed around the borders of the ventricles and deep in the subcortical WM regions. WHM is not present in health adults until the age of 50-55 (Hopkins et al., 2006). Further,

Alzheimer’s disease, other wise known as AD, is an age-related, non-reversible brain disorder that develops over a period of years . “Initially, people experience memory loss and confusion, which may be mistaken for the kinds of memory changes that are sometimes associated with normal aging.” However, what differentiates Alzheimer’s from normal aging is that cognitive function is impaired at such a high intensity over such a small time period that it induces issues such as: personality changes, decline in cerebral function, impairments when reasoning and making decisions, distortion and interference with speech, inability

As the population keeps aging, Alzheimer 's Disease (AD) is becoming a more significant public health issue. The prevalence of AD is expected to reach 34 million worldwide by 2025 (Mount 2006) and with the aging demographic, early diagnosis and treatment of AD is gaining importance. Cognitive decline and altered brain function related to AD has been shown to be present years before the clinical onset of the disorder through functional brain imaging techniques (Prvulovic 2011). Emphasis has been on detection of AD in its preclinical stages to provide early interventions for the patients. Since Fuld et al.(1990) 's study suggesting that the examination of cognitive functioning in non demented older adults is predictive of prospective dementia, countless studies have attempted to devise reliable methods of detecting cognitive changes and risk factors in preclinical populations.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia, and accounts for more than half of the dementia cases. The disease was named after German psychiatrist and neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer in 1906. Increased levels of protein inside and outside the brain’s nervous cells make it hard to stay healthy, causing them to deteriorate and eventually die. The brain region called the hippocampus is the center of learning and memory in the brain, and the cells in this region are often the first to be damaged. Eventually, the size of the hippocampus will become smaller from lack of cell growth. An MRI

As we age, it is natural for cognitive deterioration, however if this deterioration significantly impairs one’s independence, a diagnosis of major neurocognitive disorder is given There are currently 24 to 36 million people with neurocognitive disorders around the world, with 4.6 million new cases emerging each year (Hollingworth, P., Harold, D., Jones, L., Owen, M. J., & Williams, J. (2011); Ames, D., Chiu, E., Lindsesay, J., & Shulman, K. I., 2010). Those suffering with a neurocognitive disorder experience a significant decline in facets of cognitive function such as: memory and learning, attention, perceptual motor skills, planning and decision making, language ability, or social cognition (APA, 2013, 2012). Alzheimer’s disease is the most

Over the centuries, the term dementia has evolved from one that described any change in intellect or judgement in the elderly, to a collection of cognitive and behavioral symptoms correlated with specific neuropathology. The aging process is thought to have three possible cognitive outcomes: (1) normal age related decline, which is often described as normal and healthy aging; (2) age associated memory impairment, which is not as severe and does not have all of the features of dementia; (3) dementia, for which there are many types (Christensen & O’Brien, 2000).

Healthy aging has become an important field of research of the 21st century. Today, people aged 85 and older are the fastest growing demographics in the United States (Lock & Belza, 2017). Aging has been associated with decline in cognitive performance such as executive functioning, episodic memory, and attention (Memel, Bourassa, Woolverton, and Sbarra, 2016) as well decline in volume of such brain structures as grey and white matters (Sowell, Peterson, Thompson, Welcome, Henkenius & Toga, 2003). Therefore, it is important to understand mechanisms and processes that influence decline in cognitive abilities and brain structures with age to reduce its occurrence or at least to reduce the speed of its decline (Ska et al., 2009). It is hypothesized that bilingualism promotes healthy cognitive aging by enhancing the executive control functions, preserving grey matter volume, and contributing to the cognitive reserve that can delay the onset of dementia in older age.