Early Detection of Amyloid β Pathology in Alzheimer’s Disease by Molecular MRI

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a degenerative brain disease and the most common cause of dementia. Early stage β-amyloid oligomers (AβOs) and late stage Aβ plaques are the pathological hallmarks of AD brains. AβOs are known to be more neurotoxic and contribute to neuronal damage. Most current approaches are focused on detecting Aβ plaques, which occurs at the late stage of AD, and are limited by poor sensitivity and/or contrast agent toxicity. In previous studies, we developed a new curcumin-conjugated magnetic nanoparticle (Cur-MNPs) to target the Aβ pathologies. In this study, we investigate the in vivo feasibility of this novel Cur-MNPs to detect Aβ pathologies at the early and late stages of AD in transgenic AD mice and perform immunohistochemical examinations to validate the specific targeting of various form of Aβ pathologies.