Uncovering Alzheimer's One Sense at a Time

Uncovering Alzheimer's One Sense at a Time

Alvin Sherman Library

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder affecting 55 million people worldwide and is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. Without effective interventions, diagnoses are expected to quadruple by 2050. One major barrier to treatment is the difficulty of detecting AD early, limiting the opportunity for timely intervention prior to the accumulation of significant, irreversible brain pathology. Therefore, developing specific, sensitive biomarkers is crucial for early diagnosis as it enables timely intervention and can potentially slow disease progression. Electronic-senses (E-senses) technology, which mimic human senses like olfaction and gustation, show promise in detecting changes in health and diseases by identifying differences in sample biomarkers. Already used in pregnancy tests and blood glucose monitors, tailoring E-senses to detect Alzheimer’s could be next. This research assessed various E-senses (E-tongues, E-eyes, and E-noses) to detect chemical differences in urine and feces from transgenic AD mice compared to age- and sex-matched healthy controls. The data helped create a digital fingerprint matrix for each subject by layering the graphical results. The E-tongue, tested with urine, was most successful at differentiating diseased mice from healthy ones, suggesting that key markers for AD can be identified and used for prediction models to enable AD diagnosis. Future directions will explore human samples to validate the translatability of the prediction models. Ultimately, E-senses technology could provide invaluable insights into the initial stages of AD, tracking its progression, and earlier AD detection, allowing more timely and effective treatments.