Dr. Steve Patterson (MSc’08, PhD (Physics)’14) and his team in the IWK Health Centre’s biotic research lab are taking on a momentous task: figuring out how to detect Alzheimer’s disease before patients show symptoms.

While Alzheimer’s is believed to affect the brain up to 20 years before clinical symptoms become apparent, the changes emerge very subtly and are hard therefore to detect. With earlier detection of these changes, however, the researchers believe that drug treatments may be more effective, improving outcomes for Alzheimer’s patients.

Dr. Patterson will put his physics background to use as the researchers test patients’ memory functions through magnetoencephalography, or MEG, technology. Alzheimer’s patients typically employ more areas of the brain, and different regions, than healthy people, which should be shown in the testing.

The study is still recruiting participants who are at least 55 years old and diagnosed with memory complaints, mild cognitive impairment, or Alzheimer’s disease.

Read more in “Halifax researchers looking for solution to Alzheimer’s disease” on ctvnews.ca.