(Image source: ABC News)

BY NATHAN BYRNE

ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY
 

Silent strokes don’t make much noise on the outside, but researchers claim a slow, quiet buildup could cause memory loss.

WebMD Health News says the Columbia University study holds “new clues” that could help prevent memory loss.

Neuropsychology professor, Adam Brickman, co-authored the study and says, “These are strokes for the most part that people didn’t realize they had. … On an MRI, it's like a dark hole that indicates some tissue loss due to vascular injury.”

ABC reports the doctors-turned-detectives must first find the small, silent strokes.

“It possibly gives us a target for earlier intervention on people to be able to identify them and institute interventions.”

The study showed silent strokes occurring in nearly 25 percent of older adults.

Those numbers raised eyebrows over on the AARP blog, where they’re treating this as a life-expectancy issue.

Dr. Alexander K. Smith, says this in the AARP’s post: “This is about empowering patients to make informed choices and encouraged individual decision-making.”

A report from The Oregonian says scientists may not know how Alzheimer’s does its damage, but they think it starts with the tangles of dementia.

“...treatments developed to reduce the build-up of plaques have not stopped memory loss and other symptoms from worsening … Some researchers, however, now believe that the field has focused too narrowly on plaque buildup, neglecting another prominent factor in the advance of Alzheimer's: widespread changes in the blood vessels that supply blood to the brain … People are coming around to the idea that maybe we've been overlooking the importance of the vascular system...”