Original broadcast date: January 25, 2009

One of the areas that have been the focus of Alzheimer’s disease research is early diagnosis. To date, diagnosis is based more on the signs and symptoms of disease. A means of predicting whether someone will develop Alzheimer’s in the future remains problematic.

That may change as more evidence begins to demonstrate that MRI brain scans provide valuable diagnostic information about Alzheimer’s disease as reported earlier this month in the journal Neurology.

• Dr. Ranjan Duara, MD, MD, medical director of the Wien Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders at Mount Sinai Medical Center and Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami