轻度认知障碍(mild cognitive impairment,MCI)具有发展为阿尔茨海默症(Alzheimer's disease,AD)的高度危险性,其发病机理、早期检测与进展状况跟踪预测是轻度认知障碍研究中3个重要问题。Aβ沉积与tau蛋白异常较好地解释了MCI/AD的致病机理与过程,是对MCI最为敏感的生化特征;认知能力评分适用于评估与确诊出现临床症状的患者;神经影像学,包括脑结构、脑功能与脑网络的研究,有效地推动了MCI/AD的研究,为临床诊断提供更直接的客观依据。将生化特征、神经心理学与神经影像学特征相结合,应用模式分类与预测模型,实现MCI/AD的分类,以及MCI的动态跟踪和进展状况预测,具有重要的研究意义与临床应用价值。
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) has high risk to be converted into Alzheimer's disease (AD). There exist three important issues such as its pathogenesis, early detection, progress tracking and predicting. The theory of Aβ deposition and abnormal tau protein can be effectively used to explain the pathogenesis and process of MCI/AD, and they are the most sensitive biochemical marks to MCI/AD, whereas cognitive ability scores are usually adopted to assess and diagnose the MCI/AD patients with clinical symptoms. Moreover, neuroimaging technologies, including investigation on brain structure, brain function and brain networks, have potentials to facilitate the exploration on MCI/AD. Neuroimaging technologies have already provided more direct and objective basis for clinical diagnosis on MCI/AD. The three main features including biochemical marks, neuropsychology and neuroimaging features can be combined and then applied to the pattern classification model, so as to differentiate MCI from AD, track progress of MCI and predict its development.