Newsletter
Novel MRI Technique Shows Early Stages of Alzheimer's Disease
Issue: Fall 2007 (pdf)
Recognizing his outstanding research potential, Konstantinos Arfanakis, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, received the 2007 IIT Sigma Xi Excellence in Research Award–Junior Faculty Category. Since completing his Ph.D. in medical physics (University of Wisconsin,Madison) in 2002, Arfanakis has created a state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) lab under the auspices of the IIT Medical Imaging Research Center and the Center for Integrative Neuroscience and Neuroengineering (with the University of Chicago). The impact of his work is demonstrated by the fact that his papers have already been cited in professional literature more than 400 times.
Images Reveal Early Stages of Alzheimer's Disease
Research Expertise
Arfanakis’ research is focused on the development of novel MRI techniques for studying brain function, structure, and connectivity. He and fellow IIT researchers have developed novel MRI data acquisition methods for assessing properties of neural tissue such as blood oxygenation and proton diffusion, optimal image reconstruction techniques, and postprocessing algorithms to extract useful information from the acquired MRI data.Working closely with neuroradiologists, neurologists, psychiatrists and neurosurgeons, Arfanakis’ research group has developed several methods used for clinical applications in hospitals and diagnostic facilities including mild traumatic brain injury, temporal lobe epilepsy, intermittent explosive disorder, autism, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Applications in the Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease
A major focus of Alzheimer’s disease research is to develop procedures that will enable physicians to make a diagnosis early in the course of the disease. Early intervention may result in better treatment outcomes, particularly if new disease-modifying drugs become available. IIT’s investigation in this area is being conducted in collaboration with the director and members of the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center (a National Institutes of Health-funded center), as well as with faculty at Indiana University.
The early stages of Alzheimer’s disease involve the development of neurofibrillary tangles (abnormal structures that accumulate inside brain cells and are associated with cellular damage) in nerve cells of the entorhinal cortex (EC), a brain area critical for forming new memories. Neurofibrillary tangles damage long, thin cellular structures called axons. The axons of entorhinal nerve cells transmit messages through an area called the perforant pathway (PP) and into the hippocampus, a part of the brain important for learning and memory. Damage to these axons may lead to memory loss and cognitive decline.
For this study, Arfanakis’ lab has developed a refined diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) technique to detect alterations in the structural integrity of the EC and PP. Arfanakis believes that “accurate detection of such damage may prove to be an important way of diagnosing Alzheimer’s early in the course of the disease.”