New U.S. research shows that scans of the brain using MRI technology can help doctors predict whether patients with mild cognitive impairment will develop Alzheimer’s disease (progeria) in the future. Analysis of MRI brain scans can calculate the risk of Alzheimer’s disease within a year for patients with mild cognitive impairment, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine said April 6 in an article in the online edition of the journal Radiology. Data for the study were collected between 2005 and 2010 and included the results of the initial MRI scans and a review one year later. The study involved 203 healthy adults, 317 patients with mild cognitive impairment and 164 patients with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The average age of the study participants was 75 years. Researchers analyzed and compared the results of two MRI exams and then calculated the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in patients with mild cognitive impairment. The researchers noted that MRI brain scans can reveal the degeneration of the cerebral cortex in the brains of patients with mild cognitive impairment, which can determine the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. The cerebral cortex plays a key role in memory, attention, thinking and language, and one of the features of Alzheimer’s disease is the loss of cells in certain parts of the cerebral cortex, resulting in atrophy in that area. Mild cognitive impairment is when a person develops mild memory or other cognitive impairment that does not meet the criteria for dementia, with clinical manifestations of not only memory impairment, but also impairment in other aspects of cognitive function such as attention, word fluency, and executive ability. Mild cognitive impairment does not necessarily progress to Alzheimer’s disease, but as a person ages, he or she experiences more severe mental decline than normal.