A PIONEERING study into brain functions to find a treatment for Alzheimer's disease is being launched this month.

The unique project has received funding by medical charity Hope after it received £79,000 from PPP Healthcare Medical Trust towards research into the disease.

The programme will be carried out by scientists at the memory clinic at the Moorgreen Hospital, West End, Southampton.

Alzheimer's disease is progressive and invariably fatal and it can affect people in their 20s as well as the elderly.

Dementia currently affects up to 15 per cent of the population over the age of 65 at a cost to the welfare system estimated to be more than £1.3 billion a year.

For the £110,000 study psychiatrists will use 12 patients suffering from the illness and six healthy ones to compare results over a four-month period.

Brain imaging will also be taken in the department of nuclear medicine in a bid to understand the role of brain receptors in the disease.

Dr Paul Kemp, one of the medics leading the research, said: "With the recent introduction of new therapeutic agents we have for the first time demonstrated that the progression of the disease can be halted, albeit temporarily, for an average of 38 weeks in one third of patients.

"These agents act by increasing the brain content of the natural chemical messenger, acetyl-choline, a substance which appears to be depleted in patients with Alzheimer's dementia.

The trust director of Southampton-based Hope, Terry Osborn, said: "This study will be of national and international interest.

"It is important that we raise funds to help us to understand this terrible disease and find treatments for it.

"It is clear that, unless we tackle this condition, it will become the disease of the millennium."

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