Towards Visualization of Amyloid Deposition using Susceptibility Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging in a Rat Model of Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects millions of individuals in the United States alone. Common symptoms of the disease are forgetfulness and memory loss. However, these AD symptoms typically appear later in life despite potential early and hidden biological changes in the brain. This preclinical stage can began years before the onset of the typical symptoms of AD marking the need for earlier detection methods for developing therapies to slow symptom progression. Here, I have developed an initial susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) method, a subset of magnetic resonance imaging, for the purpose of longitudinal study of AD.