The present invention relates to the diagnosis, risk assessment, prevention, andtreatment of Senile Dementia of the Alzheimer's Type (SDAT). More specifically thepresent invention relates to the measurement of ethanolamine phospholipids inhuman serum. Subsets of these molecules are significantly altered in subjects withpathologically confirmed deposits of β-amyloid versus subjects withoutβ-amyloid deposits and in subjects with a clinical manifestation of dementiaconsistent with a diagnosis of SDAT versus non-demented controls. Further,the invention relates to the diagnosis of various stages of SDAT, the early detectionand prevention of SDAT symptoms, the treatment of SDAT, the differential diagnosisof non-SDAT dementia, and the identification of molecular targets for whichchemical or biological treatments can be designed for the therapeutic interventionof SDAT. The present invention also relates to methods of using a molecular diagnosticassay to direct and select the appropriate therapeutic intervention for subjectssuffering from dementia. The present invention also relates to small moleculesor metabolites that are found to have significantly different abundances betweenpersons with a clinical manifestation of SDAT and normal, non-demented patients.
