Study involving Rutgers researcher adds insight into how individuals emotionally respond to learning about their amyloid status. Learning about one’s risk for Alzheimer’s disease may not lead to emotional distress, but motivation to maintain healthy lifestyle changes tends to fade over time, even in people at high risk, according to a study involving a Rutgers Health researcher.
The study, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, was written by Sapir Golan Shekhtman, a doctoral degree student at the Joseph Sagol Neuroscience Center at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, and led by Orit Lesman-Segev, a neuroradiologist at the Department of Diagnostic Imaging and researcher at the Joseph Sagol Neuroscience Center, Sheba Medical Center in Israel, and co-authored by Michal Schnaider Beeri, director of the Herbert and Jacqueline Krieger Klein Alzheimer’s Research Center at the Rutgers Brain Health Institute.
A protein called amyloid beta in the brain is one of the core pathologies in Alzheimer’s disease. The buildup of amyloid plaques can be detected decades before symptoms appear. These plaques can be visualized and quantified by a positron emission tomography (PET) scan. To read the full story.