What Celebrity Names Can Reveal about the Onset of Alzheimer’s Disease

Research that is targeting the early diagnosis of Alzheimer disease has drawn national attention to the work of Michael Seidenberg, PhD, a faculty member at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.

Dr. Seidenberg, a professor in the university’s Department of Psychology, is the lead author of an article in the journal Neurology detailing a study that maps the brain activity of 69 healthy senior men and women, aged 65-85, including some at higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease, as they distinguish between famous and unfamiliar names.

Participants were divided into three groups: those with no risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease, those with a family history of the disease but no genetic risk factors and those who not only have relatives diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but who also carry the apolipoprotein e4 gene, which studies have shown increases the risk of developing the disease.

Published in late August, the two-year study created a flurry of interest among national media outlets including online editions of Time and Newsweek, for its use of celebrity names in gauging how much effort brains expend in retrieving information stored in the brain areas associated with memory.

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which offers a view of brain activity related to a specific task or neural region. While lying in the scanner, participants signaled recognition as they listened to a list of 60 names, half of them well known - people like Albert Einstein, Britney Spears, George Clooney and Marilyn Monroe – and half of them obscure or unfamiliar.

The results were compelling. The control group, which had no risk factors, exhibited increased brain activity when confronted with unfamiliar names. But it was the opposite for those at high risk. They showed higher levels of activation when recognizing famous names.

“Even though they are getting to the information as accurately as people with no risk factors, their brains are doing something differently,” Dr. Seidenberg said. “The way we’re beginning to view this is it’s a compensatory mechanism to allow them to perform the task. More activity reflects that different brain areas are contributing.”

That hypothesis will be tested by Dr. Seidenberg and his research partners, scientists from the Cleveland Clinic, Wayne State University and the Medical College of Wisconsin, when they study another group of subjects who will react to a new list of names. The research team will examine the changes in brain activity which has taken place since the original fMRI session.

Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the study is one of a series begun approximately seven years ago, according to Dr. Seidenberg. “We have hypothesized that you do get different patterns of activity on fMRI as you look at people at risk for developing dementia,” Dr. Seidenberg said. “Bringing this group back allows us to look at people who are becoming symptomatic – that are experiencing day-to-day memory problems – and see what happens over time to their brain activity.”