Healthy aging and Alzheimer's disease

The recent approval of 7T clinical MRI systems by regulatory bodies in the United States and Europe has set the ground running to transition from purely research applications to research and clinical utilization. Moving toward ultra-high field (UHF) MRI opens up a number of opportunities for clinical imaging owing to the significant increase in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This can be exploited to increase the spatial resolution permitting the visualization of small anatomical structures such as medial temporal subregions and generate more fine-grained assessments of neurodegenerative pathophysiology and vascular dysfunction. This chapter sets out to explain how UHF MRI may help to provide new insights into age-related physiology and early AD pathophysiology.