Diabetes and AD pathology: the role of imaging technique!

It is always a controversial issue that if there is any relation with diabetes and Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology. Some studies found that diabetes is a cause of cerebral infarction, but not with AD pathology. However, the diabetic people who suffer from cerebral infarction, they might develop low cognitive function eventually, categorized into dementia like diseases. Then, diabetes might be an indirect predisposing factor to grow dementia-like disease such as AD in the elderly population. In this perspective, the elderly people those who suffer from diabetes with dementia like symptoms, should be advised to take imaging scan for evaluation of brain function. There are some imaging techniques for this evaluation – until now, MRI scanning method is useful. Among nuclear medicine techniques, SPECT scanning method has also been useful. Specific radiotracer is still on the way of development for PET scanning method; however, 18FDG-PET has been used commercially worldwide. 18FDG-PET scanning method can be useful to evaluate AD pathology in the brain – both functional and anatomical.