Team finds possible marker for post-stroke dementiaBy Lee I-chia / Staff reporterA team of National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) researchers yesterday said that it has discovered a biomarker that could one day help predict the risk of post-stroke dementia (PSD). The lack of a biomarker has made it difficult to accurately predict the risk of PSD in stroke patients, she said. Liu’s research team collaborated with Chen Yi-chun (陳怡君), a physician in Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital’s Department of Dementia, in a study to analyze the cognitive function conditions and associated physiological changes in ischaemic stroke patients. The team found that the D-amino acid oxidase (DAO) levels in the blood plasma of PSD patients were significantly higher than in stroke patients without PSD or healthy people, indicating that DAO could be a biomarker for predicting PSD in stroke patients, Liu said. With further studies and cross analysis, it might be possible to predict the risk of PSD in stroke patients from the DAO level in their blood samples, she said.

Source: Taipei Times October 19, 2020 15:56 UTC