Tackling Alzheimer's Disease

Hanyang University. Korea: Professor Jong-Min Lee of the Department of Biomedical Engineering is professor and researcher whose main research interest liesin computational neurolmage analysis and computational neuroscience. His recent thesis paper titled “Anatomical heterogeneity of Alzheimer’s Disease: Based on cortical thickness of MRIs” provided a deeper insight into Alzheimer’s disease and contributed for a more accurate diagnosis of the disease. Due to this achievement, Lee was chosen as the Hanyang University Researcher of the Month for the month of January.


Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia that causes problems with memory, thinking, and other intellectual abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life. Although abnormal, it is highly associated with people aged 65 and older, and accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. Especially in Asian countries such as Korea and Japan where average life expectancy is relatively high, the disease has become a serious problem, affecting many families and households. At present, Alzheimer’s disease cannot be cured or reversed, but the effects and process of the disease can be slowed, with preliminary diagnosis and proper care.
Therefore, recently, there have been extensive research and development in the field of accurately diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, in which there are largely two methods: 1) medical examination and interview by individual doctors, and 2) Using image analyses utilizing computer technology. The former involves a doctor questioning a patient suspected of showing early signs of the disease, going through a survey of asking frequency and patterns of daily routine. However, this method has not proven to be very accurate in diagnosing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
The second method of diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease involves using imaging technology, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET). The PET method produces a three dimensional image of functional process in the body, in this case, the brain, by using nuclear technology. While proven to be relatively accurate, the PET method is hard to conduct, not preferred by the patient, and extremely expensive. Thus, there has been more extensive investment made in the research of utilizing MRI technology to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, which is more economical to conduct.
In his paper, Lee found that by utilizing MRI technology, the signs associated with dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease can be heterogeneous, and can be categorized into different subtypes. He found that using MRI, the signs of the disease can be categorized with the cortical thickness of the subparts of the cerebrum, which is the largest part of the human brain responsible for perception, imagination, thought, and judgment. The subparts of the cerebrum include the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, and occipital lobe. Also, the brain cells in these subparts are mainly located in the rim area, like a shell of a walnut.
Since Alzheimer’s disease causes these brain cells in the rim to die out, the thinning of these rim parts, or ‘cortical thickness,’ can be associated with the disease. Lee found out that there are certain patterns of the thinning process, depending on which part of the cerebrum is mainly affected. By taking high-resolution MRIs of 152 patients in their earlier stages of Alzheimer’s disease, Lee found largely three categories of cortical thicknesses, which are 1) Dominant thinning effect on the temporal lobe, 2) Dominant thinning effect on the parietal lobe, and 3) Diffused effect on nearly all of the cortices.
Based on this research, which was partnered with the doctors of the Samsung Medical Center, Lee provided a deeper insight into the signs and patterns of the effects of the Alzheimer’s disease, and led for a better preliminary diagnosis of the suspected victims, allowing them to have proper care and slowing down the process of the disease. “The field of biomedical engineering involves extensive collaboration between doctors who specialize in caring and treating patients with researchers like me who specialize in specific technology, in this case computer imaging technology,” said Lee. “Therefore, having good teamwork and understanding of each other’s fields of profession is extremely important. This is what I regard to be the most important aspect in my researching career, and believe that this teamwork has let me to another excellent result like this paper.”