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Researchers announce new definition of Alzheimer’s disease.

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From trial-ready registries to genotyping parties, the field has developed new techniques and meds to stem a tide of failed trials. Alzforum’s 13-part series sums up the state of the art as presented at a recent conference.

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This past decade, Alzheimer’s science has undergone a paradigm shift toward the disease’s early, silent phase. For trials, this means change at every level: new participants, new screening tools, new outcome measurements. What’s the progress?

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Anyone can learn whether they carry mutations known to cause Alzheimer’s, frontotemporal dementia, and other fatal neurodegenerative diseases.

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The discovery hints that microglia, rather than neurons, may control much of a person’s genetic susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease.

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A new study shows that people with a protective Aβ mutation have less of the peptide in their blood all through their lives, likely explaining why they do not get Alzheimer's. It suggests ways to prevent the disease in the vast majority of people who don’t have the mutation.

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A founder of U.S. Alzheimer’s research, Robert D. Terry, has died at 93. He first showed what plaques and tangles look like in the electron microscope, and linked failing cognition to withering synapses in the brain.

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At a meeting in Leuven, Belgium, a coherent picture began to emerge for how fluid pockets of proteins and RNAs contribute to health and disease.

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As researchers seek cognitively normal people on the way to Alzheimer’s to fill clinical prevention trials, they face the delicate task of disclosing a highly elevated, but not certain, risk of developing the disease to thousands of people. Scientists look to cancer research for cues as they recruit for the first of such trials.

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The Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer’s Network is churning out serial data on how Alzheimer’s disease develops in a given person over many years, and at the same time transforming how therapeutic trials are being done on this disease.

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Alzforum reports some of the major highlights from the recent Keystone symposium on the role of microglia in neurodegenerative disease.

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In the past year, the Global Alzheimer’s Platform and the European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia have moved quickly, and jointly, to pave the way toward more, faster, cheaper trials. Will they be better, too?

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Neurodegenerative disease researchers in the U.K. fear the Brexit will curtail their access to EU funds and complicate international collaborations. Analysts agree that a U.K. exit is likely to harm big science across the continent.

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Researchers are making progress in understanding exactly how sleep helps the brain lay down memories and remove waste products. The findings may have implications for diseases in which sleep and memory are impaired. Alzforum reports.

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In Washington, D.C., stakeholders in frontotemporal dementia came together to apply lessons learned from setbacks of Alzheimer’s drug development to the emerging field of therapy evaluation in FTD.

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Last month, scientists gathered to powwow about where we are with FTD, DLB, and cerebrovascular disorders and how best to target research dollars to them. Researchers articulated funding priorities for each of these diseases, which will inform the next bypass budget, and, hopefully, the next funding allocation.

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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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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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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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While regulators are trying to figure out what went wrong, independent chemists have dug into the mechanism of what may have been a "dirty" drug.

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

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The most complicated of the age-relating dementing diseases just got a little clearer. Marked by degeneration of both the mind and the body, dementia with Lewy bodies combines aspects of both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. DLB has for years languished in the shadows of its eponymous cousins when it came to recognition and research funding, but a recent, once-in-a-decade international conference showcased progress in better defining what DLB is and setting the stage for therapy trials.

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Scientists have made several kinds of mice in the hope of mimicking ALS and frontotemporal dementia, diseases caused by mutations in the C9ORF72 gene. Early results indicate that the mutated genes generate unusual RNAs and proteins, but that losing the normal C9ORF72 gene does not kill neurons.

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Researchers conducting clinical trials of drugs that might prevent AD are exploring how best to inform participants of their increased risk for the disease, and studying how they cope with this information. Alzforum reports in a two-part series.

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A sense of shared purpose energized a day of exchange between families with autosomal-dominant AD and researchers engaged in the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network.

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has given the nod to an 18,500-patient study to see whether amyloid scans prove their worth in the clinic. Researchers hope the study will eventually convince CMS and private insurance companies to cover the technology.

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At the Keystone symposium “Neuroinflammation in Diseases of the Central Nervous System,” researchers bridged the gap between inflammation and neurobiology to uncover how the two influence neurodegenerative disease. Read Alzforum’s seven-part series for the highlights.

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Brain banks enable crucial advances in neurodegenerative disease research, but dwindling public support around the world now threatens to cripple these institutions. Alzforum reports on the challenges and achievements of brain banks in a three-part series.

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Scientists are developing PET tracers to detect neurofibrillary tangles in the brain, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Alzforum reviews the state of the research.

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Molecular biologists are wielding a hot new gene editing tool called CRISPR to mutate, slice, and hopefully repair virtually any spot in the genome of any animal. Neuroscientists are finally taking advantage of the new technique, with an eye toward potential therapies for genetic diseases.

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Many families with a history of Alzheimer’s or related diseases remain unaware they can use preimplantation genetic diagnosis to avoid passing on disease genes to their children. In a two-part series, Alzforum covers the pros and cons of PGD.

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While scientists debate whether computer games benefit cognition, some are finding new uses for gaming data—in clinical trial research. In a two-part series, Alzforum reports on the data behind the games.

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Catch up on the latest in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Alzforum series delivers the highlights of new findings presented at a joint Keystone meeting.

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At the Keystone Symposium “New Frontiers in Neurodegenerative Disease Research,” held 4-7 February in Santa Fe, New Mexico, researchers explored the processes that lead to a variety of diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS). Several presenters described damage that genes undergo as people age, pointing to DNA breaks as a potential step on the way to disease. Others discussed a new component of the protein tangles that characterize Alzheimer's disease. Researchers also reported progress in understanding how two proteins, TDP-43 and FUS, cause ALS. See Alzforum’s four-part series

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Scientists are getting serious about tackling Alzheimer's disease with multiple drugs. Going after one target at a time has not proven successful, and some researchers believe that new drugs may not work well alone. Instead, they want to develop combination therapies. It worked for AIDS and cancer—why not Alzheimer’s?

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At the 7th Human Amyloid Imaging conference held in Miami, Florida, 250 experts discussed the hottest topics in Alzheimer’s brain imaging. What’s in store for 2013? Read about new compounds that image tau—one of the disease’s toxic proteins, ground rules for scanning patients for plaques, and a plan to unify scan measures.

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Electrodes implanted inside the brain are helping patients with Parkinson's disease. Called deep brain stimulation, the treatment often gives patients control over their movements that cannot be achieved with currently approved drugs. But the surgery is delicate and the treatment does not work for everyone. Alzforum explores the procedure and its potential use for Alzheimer's disease.

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Planning to cover dementia research this year? Before the 12 Days of Christmas are over, bone up on the most compelling research trends of 2012 by reading Alzforum’s roundup. It covers everything from surprising gene discoveries to drug trial results and points out some of the big stories to watch for in 2013.

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Take a look inside the brains of many soldiers, football players, and boxers, and you’ll find shrinking structures and massive, spreading pathology. Scientists now realize the pattern looks different from any known neurodegenerative disease. A fledgling scientific field has sprung up around these findings and is hurrying to identify, study, and prevent this newly described disease. Special coverage from Alzforum, a respected news source on Alzheimer’s and related diseases, details their latest efforts.

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Potential Alzheimer’s disease drugs have performed poorly in clinical trials with no sign of any new approvals on the horizon. Have scientists reached a therapeutic dead end? Not according to the 5th Clinical Trials in Alzheimer’s Disease conference, held 29-31 October in Monaco. Researchers revealed benefit from new data, suggesting some of those therapies may still prove useful. To read about the latest trial trends, check out the seven-part series from the Alzheimer Research Forum Alzforum, a well-respected news source on Alzheimer’s and related diseases.

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Two pharma companies have agreed to donate three investigational drugs to test in people who are destined by genetics to develop early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

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A small company with roots in Singapore and Scotland plans to test a relatively unknown compound in clinical trials for a type of dementia that strongly affects behavior.

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Against a backdrop of failed clinical trials and looming epidemic, people are wondering if anything can be done to stop or slow down Alzheimer’s disease. A large European initiative has begun to test if lifestyle interventions can prevent dementia.

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The FDA recently approved a positron emission tomography tracer for imaging amyloid plaques in the brain. But who will pay for these expensive scans, and who will they benefit? The lobbying has begun...

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You’ve heard the tale before: Scientists can treat diseases like Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig’s in mice, but when those same drugs get to human trials, they fail. Can researchers come up with mice that better mimic the patient? In the case of Lou Gehrig’s, some of the latest mice have a problem: they die not because of their spinal nerve disease, but due to blockage of their gut, reports Alzforum, the leading news source on Alzheimer’s and related disease research.

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New compounds that visualize Alzheimer's-related plaques on brain scans of living people may soon be available to doctors. Clinician researchers are grappling with whether to scan healthy people, how to reliably read scans, and how to reveal plaque status. A nine-part series by the Alzforum reports the field’s latest progress in tackling these issues.

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Tau, the protein that tangles together in Alzheimer's, spreads from cell to cell in the mouse brain, perhaps explaining disease progression in humans, suggests a new study. "Alzheimer's disease seems to spread like an infection from brain cell to brain cell...." says The New York Times, but experts assure Alzforum that the disease is not contagious.

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Having primary care doctors routinely screen patients for dementia at annual check up visits—just like they do for high blood pressure or cholesterol—could identify people in need of dementia care and reassure those who are healthy. That’s what dementia experts argued at a meeting held last month, as reported on Alzforum (www.alzforum.org).

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Candidate drugs for Alzheimer’s disease have so far been tested in patients who have dementia; by that time, the disease may be too far along to do much about it. In a recent opinion piece, scientists laid out the case for testing drugs at an earlier stage, in patients who have yet to show clinical symptoms. The proposal has sparked ongoing debate on Alzforum.