WASHINGTON, March 14—A team of researchers in Bedford, Mass. has developed a way of examining brain tissue with near-infrared light to detect signs of Alzheimer’s disease. In the March 15 issue of the journal Optics Letters, published by the Optical Society of America, the team describes how they used optical technology to examine tissue samples taken from different autopsies and correctly identified which samples came from people who had Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s currently afflicts some 4.5 million Americans and is the most common cause of dementia among older people in the United States.
