Current Knowledge and Clinical Application of Brain Imaging in Alzheimer's Disease / 신경정신의학

ABSTRACT

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a debilitating syndrome with cognitive decline and impairment in daily activities. Although clinical assessment forms the basis for diagnosing AD, structural and functional brain imaging tools have been known to enhance accuracy of differential diagnosis and prognosis prediction by presenting structural and functional signatures for AD. Associated with the important role of brain imaging in diagnosing and treating AD, brain imaging has been recommended in the current diagnostic guidelines of AD. Visual rating scales, a cost-effective diagnostic tool, have been known to assess atrophy and functional changes in patients with cognitive impairment as accurate as quantitative assessment. In this regard, visual rating scales for brain imaging interpretation could be useful in clinical settings. In this review, we interpret structural and functional brain imaging results with standardized visual rating scales, and review recent findings concerning brain imaging tools for differential diagnosing and predicting prognosis of AD.