Scientific Review Article

Currently, there are around 800,000 people living with dementia (brain disorder) in the UK. Dementia is an umbrella term used to define a range of disease symptoms i.e. memory loss, disorganized thought, speech or other cognitive impairments. Due to the increase in life expectancy in UK, more people >65 years old are likely to be affected from this disease. The cause of the disease remains elusive, however, it is thought that the disease begins when a normal protein in the brain called amyloid begins to misfold and aggregate resulting in degeneration of neurons (brain cells). In this review, I focus on amyloid imaging with particular emphasis on amyloid imaging in Alzheimer`s disease (disorder of forgetfulness), mild cognitive impairment and other dementias, and discuss the advances made in this perplexing field.