About this Research Topic
The increase in life expectancy and the prevalence of age-related cognitive disorders have led to great interest in studying normal and pathological aging with the aim to individuate early predictors of neurodegenerative disorders, differential diagnosis, prognosis and efficacies of pharmacological and cognitive approaches in the treatment of these disorders. Determination of sensitive and specific markers of very early neurodegeneration is intended to aid researchers and clinicians to develop new treatments and monitor their effectiveness, as well as to lessen the time and cost of clinical trials.
Due to the non-invasiveness of medical imaging modality, a considerable effort has been put into the development of advanced image acquisition protocols and processing techniques in order to identify imaging-related biomarkers which could be used for enhancing the accuracy of clinical diagnosis of neurodegenerative disease or for predicting the course of diseases. Detecting the transition from the asymptomatic phase to symptomatic pre-dementia phase or from the symptomatic pre-dementia phase to dementia onset in the clinical setting is a non-trivial issue. This causes a diagnostic uncertainty for the early stage of disease. Furthermore, it seems crucial to identify biomarkers that are able to accurately predict if a subject with a mild cognitive impairment will progress or not to a neurodegenerative disease.
In this Research Topic, we invite authors to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that will illustrate and stimulate the increasing effort to extract and understand and validate imaging biomarkers to be used for the diagnosis and prognosis of neurodegenerative diseases. Potential subjects include (but are not limited to):
- Biomarkers measured by single-modal imaging systems, such as PET, SPECT, MRI, optical imaging in both clinical and pre-clinical studies
- Combined Biomarkers measured by multi-modal imaging systems, such as PET/CT, SPECT/CT, PET/MRI in both clinical and pre-clinical studies
- Imaging biomarkers combined with biological and neuropsychological measures
- Biomarkers measured by connectivity
- Assessment, validation and biological interpretation of imaging biomarkers
- Measurement, quantification and validation of imaging biomarkers
- Classification of subtypes of neurodegenerative diseases by means of imaging biomarkers
Due to the non-invasiveness of medical imaging modality, a considerable effort has been put into the development of advanced image acquisition protocols and processing techniques in order to identify imaging-related biomarkers which could be used for enhancing the accuracy of clinical diagnosis of neurodegenerative disease or for predicting the course of diseases. Detecting the transition from the asymptomatic phase to symptomatic pre-dementia phase or from the symptomatic pre-dementia phase to dementia onset in the clinical setting is a non-trivial issue. This causes a diagnostic uncertainty for the early stage of disease. Furthermore, it seems crucial to identify biomarkers that are able to accurately predict if a subject with a mild cognitive impairment will progress or not to a neurodegenerative disease.
In this Research Topic, we invite authors to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that will illustrate and stimulate the increasing effort to extract and understand and validate imaging biomarkers to be used for the diagnosis and prognosis of neurodegenerative diseases. Potential subjects include (but are not limited to):
- Biomarkers measured by single-modal imaging systems, such as PET, SPECT, MRI, optical imaging in both clinical and pre-clinical studies
- Combined Biomarkers measured by multi-modal imaging systems, such as PET/CT, SPECT/CT, PET/MRI in both clinical and pre-clinical studies
- Imaging biomarkers combined with biological and neuropsychological measures
- Biomarkers measured by connectivity
- Assessment, validation and biological interpretation of imaging biomarkers
- Measurement, quantification and validation of imaging biomarkers
- Classification of subtypes of neurodegenerative diseases by means of imaging biomarkers
Keywords: imaging biomarkers, neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
