Alzheimer's is a condition more commonly associated with older adults, but new research suggests the signs of the disease may be noticeable in children as young as three-years-old.
A new study, published in the journal
Neurology, found that symptoms of Alzheimer's can be identified in small children who are genetically predisposed to the disease.
Scientists at the University of Hawaii examined cognitive testing and brain-imaging data from 1,187 healthy children and young adults aged between three and 20 years old. All carried the APOE gene associated with Alzheimer's disease risk.
What they found is that, in the young people who carried this gene, the hippocampus (the part of the brain responsible for short-term and long-term memory and spatial navigation) was smaller than in young people who did not carry the gene.
The research also revealed that children who carried the gene didn't perform as well in memory tests as other children. It's important to note here that carrying the APOE gene doesn't guarantee that a person will develop Alzheimer's in later life, but it could help predict if a person is at risk.
The hippocampus is one of the first regions of the brain to suffer damage in Alzheimer's patients, with memory loss and disorientation among the early symptoms. Some scientists believe that Alzheimer's may be caused by a build-up of certain proteins in the brain as people grow older. The latest study suggests that there is evidence it may be a developmental condition.
Lead author of the study, Linda Chang, the director of the Neuroscience and MRI Research program at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, now hopes to build up a larger database of children and young people to study long-term.
"Studying these genes in young children may ultimately give us early indications of who may be at risk for dementia in the future and possibly even help us develop ways to prevent the disease from occurring or to delay the start of the disease," she said.
According to the
Alzheimer's Society of Ireland, approximately 4,000 people under the age of 65 in Ireland are living with early onset dementia, a term that is used to describe a number of conditions that cause damage to the brain, the most common of which is Alzheimer's Disease. More than 35,000 people are affected by
Alzheimer's Disease, a number that is expected to grow as our population ages.
