Alzheimer’s clues from thin brains

Some kids on the cusp of adolescence display a genetically influenced brain trait that may raise their likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease later in life. The entorhinal cortex, a neural area targeted by this devastating condition, is substantially thinner in youths who possess a gene variant previously linked to Alzheimer’s disease than it is in their peers who inherit other versions of the same gene, say Philip Shaw of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md.,