Dear Colleagues,

The histopathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) include the accumulation of extracellular plaques and tangles and an age-progressive marked loss of neurons. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the changes that occur in the brain of AD patients at earlier preclinical stages. It is thought that alternative network-level aberrant neuronal activity changes precede neuronal loss and perhaps represent part of an initial cascade of events ultimately resulting in later-stage neurodegeneration. Such network-level dysfunctions are thought to underlie early signs of mild cognitive impairment. There is evidence of synaptic deficits in hippocampal areas, which have been mostly described in animal models and may impair neuronal communication within and between brain regions that play roles in cognition. Based on the potentially important role of the widespread, network-level dysfunction that occurs in early AD and related dementias, neuroimaging methods are vital in uncovering novel mechanisms underlying these disorders. For instance, patients with AD at advanced stages show reduced functional connectivity in default mode and salience network areas compared to unaffected aged-matched individuals, whereas early AD is observed to entail increased functional connectivity, particularly in salience network structures. These findings illustrate how neuroimaging can reveal functional and structural biomarkers useful to monitor the progression of AD. The present call for papers for this Special Issue invites articles that apply novel neuroimaging approaches to understand AD. Neuroimaging approaches may include magnetic resonance-based methods, positron emission tomography, fluorescence imaging methods, and single cell microscopy. Ultimately, the integration of these and other neuroimaging methods may be key to revealing new and important mechanisms of AD and related dementias.

Prof. Dr. Marcelo Febo
Guest Editor

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• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Dementia
• Animal Models
• Magnetic resonance imaging
• Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging