Taking a spin in a research team's virtual maze can predict whether someone will have Alzheimer's disease decades before it strikes.

A team of researchers were able to create a series of virtual reality tests that could predict if a person would have Alzheimer's disease or dementia in the future.

"Our studies may contribute to a better understanding of early changes of Alzheimer's dementia," said one of the lead authors Professor Nikolai Axmacher.

The German team tested this series on participants 18 to 30 years old. The team found that adults with high risk for Alzheimer's Disease had reduced spatial navigation functioning, making them navigate through the system differently than the controls.

A group of participants, who the researchers identified as carriers of the APOE4 gene that triggers the early onset of Alzheimer's, were shown to have less functioning in grid cells compared to those who did not have the gene.

"The risk carriers showed a less stable grid pattern in the entorhinal cortex - many decades before they might develop Alzheimer's dementia," said Dr. Lukas Kunz, one of the lead authors.

Identifying who is at risk for the disease this early based on biomarkers like abnormal grid cell functioning could help advance the field of Alzheimer's disease treatment and research.

"Our results could provide a new basic framework for pre-clinical research on Alzheimer's disease and may provide a neurocognitive explanation of spatial disorientation in Alzheimer's disease," the researchers said.

The researchers also hope that their study's results could be used to build a framework with which the disease can further be researched to understand why patients at risk for Alzheimer's see or navigate the maze differently from those who are not.

Neurologist Dr. Luco Gilberto of North Shore-LIJ's Cushing Neuroscience Institute is just as delighted with the results.

"Right now, we have no therapies that prevent Alzheimer's," Gilberto said. He added that doctors will need this and other reliable methods of determining high risk Alzheimer's disease patients in case new treatments to prevent and even cure the disease.

As of now, there is still no method to treat Alzheimer's disease. Drugs are administered just when the large parts of the brain are already destroyed.

This is why current research aims to understand more on how the disease developed and how to determine when the disease is on its early stages.