Brain Scans To Predict Dementia Up To 9 Years In Advance

MRI breakthrough '80% more accurate than common tests'

- Hanna Geissler

MRI scans can predict who will be diagnosed with dementia up to nine years early, research suggests.

A team at Queen Mary University of London has developed a first-ofits-kind method that analyses the brain's network of connections.

They claimed it was more than 80% accurate and better than memory tests or measurements of brain shrinkage - two common ways of diagnosing dementia.

Professor Charles Marshall, who led the research, said predicting dementia was vital "for developing treatments that can prevent the irreversible loss of brain cells".