Feature Channels: Alzheimer's and Dementia

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Cell’s protein factory may hold key to stalling cognitive decline.

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At least half of Parkinson’s disease patients experience psychosis at some point during the course of their illness, and physicians commonly prescribe antipsychotic drugs, such as quetiapine, to treat the condition. However, a new study by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan Medical School, and the Philadelphia and Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centers and suggests that these drugs may do significantly more harm in a subset of patients.

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An international team of investigators led by experts at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has been awarded a nearly $3 million, five-year grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) to establish diagnostic criteria for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

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MINNEAPOLIS – Women may have a better memory for words than men despite evidence of similar levels of shrinkage in areas of the brain that show the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published in the March 16, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Could an unhealthy diet and lack of exercise be making you age faster? Researchers at Mayo Clinic believe there is a link between these modifiable lifestyle factors and the biological processes of aging. In a recent study, researchers demonstrated that a poor diet and lack of exercise accelerated the onset of cellular senescence and, in turn, age-related conditions in mice. Results appear today in Diabetes.

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A new study shows that a variety of physical activities from walking to gardening and dancing can improve brain volume and cut the risk of Alzheimer's disease by 50%.

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A new study, jointly led by the University of Southampton and King’s College London, has found a link between gum disease and greater rates of cognitive decline in people with early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease.

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Evidence of grid cell activity has been seen in healthy volunteers asked to imagine moving through an environment in new UCL research, which could help to explain why people with Alzheimer's can have problems imagining as well as remembering things.

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Anyone caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease likely can relate to former first lady Nancy Reagan, who called the illness suffered by former President Ronald Reagan “a truly long, long goodbye.”

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JAX research provides insight into the role of the western diet in Alzheimer’s disease.

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NYU Hartford researchers recently developed the Dementia Symptom Management at Home (DSM-H) program to help home healthcare agencies to improve the quality of care they provide to patients living with dementia (PLWD) and reduce caregiver stress and burnout.

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Keeping the brain active with social activities and using a computer may help older adults reduce their risk of developing memory and thinking problems, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 68th Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada, April 15 to 21, 2016.

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New research led by scientists at UC Berkeley shows for the first time that PET scans can track the progressive stages of Alzheimer’s disease in cognitively normal adults, a key advance in the early diagnosis and staging of the neurodegenerative disorder.

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Participating dementia specialists may now enroll patients to participate in the Imaging Dementia—Evidence for Amyloid Scanning (IDEAS) Study at IDEAS-Study.org.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center has joined a consortium of seven leading universities to develop new technologies to improve memory in people with traumatic brain injury, mild cognitive impairment, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s disease.

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The Lewy Body Dementia Association (LBDA) Board of Directors has named Kathleen Anduze, the recipient of the newly re-named LBDA Dorothy Mangurian Volunteer of the Year Award.

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A tiny protein known as an “amyloid beta” acts like Jekyll and Hyde in mysterious ways within the human body. Outsized human suffering is linked to this otherwise tiny, innocuous-looking molecule, as it is suspected to be a key player in the neurodegenerative mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid beta molecules appear to become toxic within our bodies when they make contact with each other and form small bundles. Oddly, they may become less toxic again as the bundles grow larger in size and form ordered fibrillary plaque deposits. This begs the question: What’s different about these bundles than the single protein molecule and the fibrils?

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The blueberry, already labeled a “super fruit” for its power to potentially lower the risk of heart disease and cancer, also could be another weapon in the war against Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers present their work today at the 251st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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Using a drug compound created to treat cancer, University of California, Irvine neurobiologists have disarmed the brain’s response to the distinctive beta-amyloid plaques that are the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

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People who keep mentally and physically healthy in middle age may help stave off the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, but the activity does not affect the underlying disease changes in the brain for most people, according to a study published in the February 24 online edition of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Keeping the mind active may delay symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease; however, the activity does not change the underlying disease in the brain for most people, according to a study published today in the online edition of Neurology.

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Many patients showing signs of dementia are quickly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease when they might actually suffer from frontotemporal dementia, delaying the appropriate treatment for them.

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Dr. Brad Pfeiffer, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and a Southwestern Medical Foundation Scholar in Biomedical Research at UT Southwestern Medical Center, has been selected as a 2016 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow in Neuroscience.

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Immune cells that normally help us fight off bacterial and viral infections may play a far greater role in Alzheimer’s disease than originally thought, according to University of California, Irvine neurobiologists with the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center and the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders.

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A chemist at Washington University in St. Louis hopes to develop bifunctional compounds that can be both therapeutic and diagnostic agents for Alzheimer’s disease. In the first role, they would block the metal-mediated formation of amyloid beta oligomers; in the second, they would be loaded with a long-lived radioistope (Cu-64) and employed as PET imaging agents.

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A free, open online course on rare forms of dementia aims to spread knowledge while harnessing social learning.

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Essential for maintaining cognitive function as a person ages, the tiny locus coeruleus region of the brain is vulnerable to toxins and infection.

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Studies report no reduction in the amyloid-β peptide or the plaques it forms. Hints of efficacy came from four people free of the ApoE4 risk gene for AD, and one patient who was on it for nearly two years. Meanwhile, scientists uncovered a new mechanism of action for bexarotene. Researchers wonder what’s going on.

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It may start with a simple word you can’t pronounce. Your tongue and lips stumble, and gibberish comes out. Misspeaking might draw a chuckle from family and friends. But, then, it keeps happening. Progressively, more and more speech is lost. Some patients eventually become mute from primary progressive apraxia of speech, a disorder related to degenerative neurologic disease.

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American Association for the Advancement of Science 2016 Annual Meeting

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Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have won nearly $1.7 million from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to investigate the mechanisms that contribute to Huntington’s disease.

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University students and residents of senior housing come together in an award-winning project that encourages storytelling collaborations.

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Inhibiting the Rho kinases ROCK1 and ROCK2 with fasudil, a drug approved in China and Japan, stimulates tau autophagy in cell culture and flies.

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New research from the University of Guelph on the brain and memory could help in developing therapies for people with schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.

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Study to investigate the relationship between dementia, atherosclerosis, and other cardiovascular risk factors measured by state-of-the-art imaging technique

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Study of plaque production holds promise of helping improve treatment.

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A new study suggests that people with brain injuries following head trauma may have buildup of the plaques related to Alzheimer’s disease in their brains. The research is published in the February 3, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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A study lead by researchers from Rush University Medical Center has provided the first report on the relationship of brain concentrations of mercury to brain neuropathology and diseases associated with dementia. Study results were published in the Feb. 2 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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New research published Feb. 2 in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that older adults with a major risk gene for Alzheimer’s disease known as APOEɛ4 who ate at least one seafood serving per week showed fewer signs of Alzheimer’s-related brain changes. In contrast, this association was not found in the brains of volunteers who ate fish weekly but did not carry the risk gene.

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Buck Institute/UCLA study finds that apolipoprotein E enters the nucleus and binds to promoter region of 1700 genes.

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Older people with higher amounts of a key protein in their brains also had slower decline in their memory and thinking abilities than people with lower amounts of protein from the gene called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, according to a study published in the January 27, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative brain disease that leads to cognitive decline, dementia and ultimately death, mostly in the elderly. It’s already a huge health burden, and it’s getting worse as the population ages. Alzheimer’s and Dementia, the journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, estimates that by 2050, one in 85 people around the globe—more than 100 million total—will be afflicted.

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Researchers have begun to explore in earnest the concept of "mixed vascular dementia," but until recently there was no reliable animal model. When Donna Wilcock of the UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging discovered that a special diet deficient in B vitamins induced cognitive impairment in mice, she gave science the animal model it needed, plus the potential for a modifiable biomarker for vascular cognitive impairment.

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The University of California San Diego’s incoming Alzheimer’s research czar talked with Alzforum about where he wants to take the embattled Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study and neurodegeneration research in the region.

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Correctly diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease remains a challenge for medical professionals. Now, a new study published in the current issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease reveals a new clue to possible misdiagnosis.

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A Mayo Clinic study of people who received anesthesia for surgery after age 40 found no association between the anesthesia and development of mild cognitive impairment later in life.

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Alzheimer’s disease relentlessly targets large-scale brain networks that support the formation of new memories. However, it remains a mystery as to why the disease selectively targets memory-related brain networks and how this relates to misfolded proteins seen by pathologists at autopsy.

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While no cure is in sight, ALS experts see reason to feel hopeful about research progress and possible new treatments.

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Howard Feldman, MD, FRCP(C), a renowned Canadian neurologist noted for his original research in geriatric cognitive disorders and expertise in large-scale clinical trials, has been named the new director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS) at University of California, San Diego, pending approval from the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

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A Kansas State University aging specialist discusses 10 main signs of Alzheimer’s disease and the importance of obtaining an early diagnosis.