Brain scan study of memory changes in early Alzheimer's disease
Tests a brain imaging scan in people with early memory problems and Alzheimer's disease.
Key facts
- Who runs it
- Rennes University Hospital
- Where
- Rennes, FranceSee the site
- Trial code
- Registry title
- MIMA Pilot Study: MIcrostructure of the Medial Temporal Lobe in Early Alzheimer's Disease
- Status
- Recruiting
- People taking part
- 50 people, planned
- Started
- 2 Jul 2024
- Expected to end
- 2 Mar 2029
- Type of study
- Interventional, 2 groups
- Treatments tested
- high-resolution diffusion MRI
- Record updated
- 17 June 2026
Who can take part
AI summary
From the trial's eligibility criteria. Machine-read from the registry text on this page, so it can be wrong. The registry text below and the trial team decide who can take part.
The trial is looking for people aged 50 to 80 with subjective cognitive decline or mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease. It tests a new MRI scan to find early signs of the disease.
- Age
- 50 to 80 years
- Sex
- Women and men can join.
- Disease stage
- Early stage: subjective cognitive decline-plus (SCD) or mild neurocognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease (MCI). People with dementia cannot join.
Main reasons for not taking part
- Anything that makes an MRI unsafe, such as a pacemaker, metal clips or claustrophobia
- Dementia
- Another medical or psychiatric condition that could affect thinking
- Pregnant or breast-feeding women
- Hearing or vision problems that get in the way of the tests
The registry criteria, word for word
Show all 14 criteriaShow less
Who can take part
- aged between 50 and 80
- native French speaking
- right-handed
- with a level of education equal to or higher than the Certificat d'Etudes Primaires (primary school leaving certificate)
- free of any medical or psychiatric condition likely to interfere with cognition, other than a diagnosis of SCD / MCI
- affiliated with a social security scheme
- having received oral and written information abou the protocol and having signed a consent form to participate in this research
- patients with 'subjective cognitive decline-plus' (hereafter 'SCD', criteria of Jessen et al., 2014) or patients with mild neurocognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease (hereafter 'MCI', criteria of Albert et al., 2011)
Who cannot take part
- contraindications to MRI : Abdominal circumference + upper limbs stuck to the body > 200 cm; Implantable pacemaker or defibrillator; Neurosurgical clips; Cochlear implants ; Neural or peripheral stimulator; Intra-orbital or encephalic metallic foreign bodies; Endoprostheses fitted less than 4 weeks ago and osteosynthesis devices fitted less than 6 weeks ago; Claustrophobia
- Dementia (McKhann et al., 2011)
- sensory deficit interfering with experimental tests
- pregnant or breast-feeding women
- adults under legal protection (safeguard of justice, curatorship, guardianship), persons deprived of liberty
- 7-items modified Hachinski ischemic score >2 (Hachinski et al., 2012)
Check if you might fit
Answer for yourself. This is not a decision: only the study team can say whether you can take part.
- Are you between 50 and 80 years old?
Where in France
- CHU RennesRennes, FranceContact: Pierre-Yves JONIN, PhDTaking people
About the trial
What the trial wants to find out
Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) may or may not develop Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia. Yet identifying patients at risk is crucial: delaying the onset of the disease by 5 years could reduce prevalence by 50%. To achieve this, we need affordable biomarkers combined with clinically meaningful assessment tools. Current approaches (cognition, imaging or Tau and Amyloid peptide assays) lack precision or specificity (e.g., age-related memory deficits) and involve invasive and costly procedures, sometimes inaccessible in France (e.g., the "AT(N)" framework). Recently, quantitative diffusion MRI (dMRI) has identified in-vivo gray matter microstructural changes linked to hyperphosphorylated Tau protein, which are of great diagnostic value. Still, we ignore whether and how these changes are responsible for early memory impairment in AD. The MIMA-P project will combine multi-compartment models of the high-resolution diffusion signal with a cognitive assessment of memory based on recent models of medial temporal lobe function to assess the relevance of a new affordable, rapid and non-invasive early marker of the disease.
The 2 groups in the trial
- SCD+Treatment being tested
Patients with subjective cognitive decline-plus due to Alzheimer's disease (or "DCS" in french)
Treatment: high-resolution diffusion MRI
- MCITreatment being tested
Patients with mild neurocognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease (or "TCL" in french)
Treatment: high-resolution diffusion MRI
Questions to ask the study team
- How often do I need to come in, and for how long each time?
- Are travel costs paid?
- Can I keep my own doctor?
- What happens if I want to stop?
Contact the study team: see the registry record → Contacts and Locations
Print a page for my doctorData and sources
- Registry record
- Listed on ClinicalTrials.gov.
- Official title
- MIMA Pilot Study: MIcrostructure of the Medial Temporal Lobe in Early Alzheimer's Disease
- Plain-language title
- Brain scan study of memory changes in early Alzheimer's diseaseGenerated from the registry record. The registry title is the official one.
- AI summary
- From the trial's eligibility criteria. Read by machine on 12 November 2026.
- Fit questions
- Built from NCT06099587, who can take part
- Record updated
- 17 June 2026