Feature Channels: Alzheimer's and Dementia

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Gait impairments often are prevalent in the early stages of cognitive decline. Researchers quantitatively compared straight walking and curved walking – a more natural yet complex activity – in healthy older adults and adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A depth camera detected and tracked 25 joints of body movement and signals were processed to extract 50 gait markers. Intriguingly, curved walking illuminated notable disparities between the study groups.

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Monitoring daily activity patterns using a wrist-worn device may detect early warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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Dementia may be three times more common among people with essential tremor, a movement disorder that causes involuntary shaking, than the general population, according to research released today, March 6, 2024. The study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 76th Annual Meeting taking place April 13–18, 2024, in person in Denver and online.

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New Cleveland Clinic-led research points to sildenafil (Viagra) as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. The study provides evidence from computational models, insurance claims data and observations from brain cells in Alzheimer’s patients. Sildenafil is the main component of drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction (Viagra) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (Revatio).

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Four University of Michigan research teams have made the bracket of 64 teams for STAT Madness, a virtual tournament of science. They were picked for their groundbreaking work on brain cancer, heart transplant, dementia care and deadly fungal infections published in 2023.

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Alzheimer’s disease and Type 2 diabetes are part of a family of amyloid diseases that are characterized by having proteins that cluster together. University of Washington researchers have demonstrated more similarities between the two diseases.

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Continuous, unobtrusive sensors and related monitoring devices are installed in older drivers’ vehicles to detect changes in highly complex activities over time. A driver facing camera, forward facing camera, and telematics unit provide video in real-time to enable researchers to analyze abnormal driving such as getting lost, reaction time and braking patterns as well as travel patterns such as miles driven, miles during the night and daytime, and driving in severe weather. Detecting changes in behavior could generate early warning signs of possible changes in cognition.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that brain cell activity during sleep is responsible for propelling fluid into, through and out of the brain, cleaning it of debris.

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Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and others have harnessed the power of machine learning to identify key predictors of mortality in dementia patients. The study, published in the February 28 online issue of Communications Medicine, addresses critical challenges in dementia care by pinpointing patients at high risk of near-term death and uncovers the factors that drive this risk. Unlike previous studies that focused on diagnosing dementia, this research delves into predicting patient prognosis, shedding light on mortality risks and contributing factors in various kinds of dementia.

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Two new studies from the University of Chicago investigate the roles of the gut microbiome and estrogen in the differing rates of Alzheimer’s disease among women and men.

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Neuroscientist Emily Rogalski, PhD, is a principal investigator on a grant from the NIH to support a clinical trial of a telehealth intervention for primary progressive aphasia (PPA).

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A new UCLA Health study found Kundalini yoga provided several benefits to cognition and memory for older women at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease including restoring neural pathways, preventing brain matter decline and reversing aging and inflammation-associated biomarkers – improvements not seen in a group who received standard memory training exercises.

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People with higher exposure to traffic-related air pollution were more likely to have high amounts of amyloid plaques in their brains associated with Alzheimer’s disease after death, according to a study published in the February 21, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Stay informed! These are the latest research articles on "Long COVID" from the Coronavirus News Source on Newswise.

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Researchers at West Virginia University have identified a set of diagnostic metabolic biomarkers that can help them develop artificial intelligence tools to detect Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages, as well as determine risk factors and treatment interventions.

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A team led by scientists at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine has identified a new therapeutic approach for combating neurodegenerative diseases.