WashU Medicine researchers developed a model to estimate when Alzheimer’s disease symptoms will begin based on the accumulation of amyloid and tau proteins in the brain. These proteins build up predictably over time, like tree rings, providing scientists with a clock for Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a method to predict when someone is likely to develop symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease using a single blood test.

In a new study published Feb. 19 in Nature Medicine, the researchers demonstrated that their models predicted the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms within a margin of three to four years. This could have implications both for clinical trials developing preventive Alzheimer’s treatments and for eventually identifying individuals likely to benefit from these treatments.

Researchers have long recognized that Alzheimer’s disease is marked by abnormal plaques and tangled proteins in the brain. More recently, attention has turned to the brain’s blood vessels and how problems in the vascular system may influence the course of the disease. Even with decades of discoveries, however, these insights have not yet led to treatments that fully stop or reverse Alzheimer’s. A major reason is that scientists still do not have a complete picture of how brain cells progressively break down over time.

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