Open AccessThe Alzheimer's Imaging Consortium: Celebrating 20 years of creativity and progress
Author(s) -
Leon Mony J.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia: diagnosis, assessment and disease monitoring
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.497
H-Index - 37
ISSN - 2352-8729
DOI - 10.1016/j.dadm.2016.10.001
Subject(s) - dementia , medicine , neuropathology , medicaid , neuroimaging , psychology , gerontology , neuroscience , disease , political science , psychiatry , pathology , health care , law
In 1975, the National Institute on Aging was created, and within a year, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) was declared the fourth leading cause of death and the most prevalent dementia disorder. However, as a new post doc in 1980, I soon discovered the research value of imaging in AD, then largely limited to structural CTand 133 Xe flow studies, was marked by doubts of utility (limited to recognizing clinically silent focal brain lesions), little public awareness (dementia vs old timers disease-really!), and limited funding (see Fig. 1 which begins in 1985 as older funding records are not available). The past 30 years show that the NIH consistently funded imaging research at well under 1% of the cost of Medicare and Medicaid spending on AD. By 1996, just 20 years later, the science of imaging the dementias experienced global recognition in large measure benefitting from technological advances. Zaven Khachaturian’s AD centers were highly successful incubators of imaging projects, the structural imaging prediction of future AD from the MCI stage was replicated, longitudinal MRI and FDG-PET studies were de rigueur, a preclinical diagnosis was in sight, imaging and neuropathology were irrevocably