Researchers are increasingly optimistic that an Alzheimer’s vaccine could emerge sooner than we think.
A hundred scientists published for the first time in the journal Nature images of a normal brain from childhood to old age.
Thus, with artificial intelligence, it will be possible to predict, by examining the brain of an individual, if he will be affected by the disease.
“As we now know what normal development and aging are, we will be able in the decade preceding the arrival of Alzheimer’s to compare the scan of the subject with that of this reference and identify the people who will be much more at risk to determine people who are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease,” explains Dr. Judes Poirier, geneticist and researcher at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute.
Several vaccines are therefore in phase 3 clinical trials, and these scientific advances could make it possible to administer them earlier in people at risk and thus reduce the risk of disease progression.
Worldwide, 43 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, 130,000 in Quebec alone.