Current development and challenges in biomarkers for early identification of mild cognitive impairment and alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) has attracted central attraction by various researchers to diagnose prodromal stage of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by using different biological and imaging biomarkers. In evaluating disease changes, it is critical to have measurements that are sensitive, specific, and reliable. The purpose of this review is to bring a comprehensive overview about the recent studies done in development of biomarker for clinical diagnosis of MCI and pre-AD using different technological interventions. The current state of knowledge highlights the implication of certain proteins, transporter, enzymes and metabolic pathway related factors, radiotracer in identification of disease progression. However, all these studies done on biomarker development lack sensitivity and specificity to be classified as clinical marker for MCI and AD. The revised criteria of, National Institute of Aging (NIA)-Alzheimer’s association in diagnosis of MCI, pre-clinical AD and AD encompass use of biomarker which can detect pathological process and subsequent neurodegeneration. The present article highlights the significant development in field of plasma, cerebrospinal fluid, serum and neuro imaging biomarkers which have shown positive result in various studies and the future challenges in application of these biomarkers at clinical setting in early intervention of disease