ID 66 – Effect of a medical food on macroscopic brain activity in mild Alzheimer’s disease: Results from an exploratory double blind, randomised controlled magnetoencephalography study

Objective The aim of the study was to explore the effect of a medical food intervention, developed to improve synaptic formation and function, on magnetoencephalography (MEG), as a proxy of macroscopic effects of synaptic changes, in patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Methods In an exploratory 24-weeks, double blind, randomised controlled sub-study of the Souvenir II study, differences between the active ( n  = 22) and control ( n  = 27) drug-naive mild AD patients were computed for frequency analysis, functional connectivity and functional brain network measures in source space MEG. Results The groups were significantly different with respect to baseline mini-mental state examination (MMSE) (active: 23.8 ± 2.3 (mean ± SD); control 25.3 ± 2.6). No consistent statistically significant intervention effects were found on the MEG measures. Conclusions In the current subsample of mild AD patients we could not detect an intervention effect of the medical food on MEG measures as opposed to EEG that has been used in a larger sample and revealed beneficial intervention effects on functional connectivity and brain network organisation in mild AD. Key message Further research is needed with substantially larger sample sizes and better balanced study groups to further assess the role of MEG in intervention trials in AD.