Brian Balin, PhD, has studied the link between infection and Alzheimer's disease for more than 20 years and offers his thoughts on this growing area of research.
While most people will agree that excessive consumption of alcohol can have a detrimental effect on the brain, there is less agreement regarding the effects of light or moderate drinking. This includes concern and controversy surrounding the effects of drinking on the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s (AD). This study investigated the association between consumption of different alcoholic beverages – beer, wine, and spirits – and one of the neuropathological signs of Alzheimer’s disease, β-amyloid (Aβ) aggregation in the brain.
Social and economic disadvantages play a significant role in why blacks face a much higher risk than whites of developing cognitive impairment later in life, indicates a national study led by a Michigan State University (MSU) sociologist.
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In a paper published in the current Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System say existing screening tools for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) result in a false-negative error rate of more than 7 percent. These persons are misclassified as not having MCI based on standard screening instruments but actually do have MCI when more extensive testing is conducted.
Why We Get Tired When We Stay Up Too Late, Pain and Anxiety Drug Linked to Birth Defects, Old Drug Could Fight Brain Cancer and more in the Neuroscience and Neurology News Source
Coprophagia, eating one’s feces, is common in animals but rarely seen in humans. Mayo Clinic researchers reviewed the cases of a dozen adult patients diagnosed with coprophagia over the past 20 years and found that the behavior is associated with a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly neurodegenerative dementias. The findings are published in the Journal of Neurology.
Deterioration in a person’s ability to smell can sometimes be an early sign of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. Now, researchers at the Monell Center have established a collaboration with the Brain Health Registry to gain better insight into how changes in a person’s sense of smell may relate to health status and cognitive function.
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Research from the University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences was able to demonstrate a positive correlation between fitness and blood flow to areas of the brain where the hallmark tangles and plaques of Alzheimer’s disease pathology are usually first detected, indicating a possibility that regular exercise could stave off AD symptoms.
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Cedars-Sinai neuroscience researchers are studying whether extensive changes in lifestyle among patients with mild cognitive impairment can slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The research comes amid a sharp rise in the numbers of people affected by Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia. The disease affects more than 5 million Americans, but diagnoses are expected to triple by 2050, costing the healthcare system an estimated $1.2 trillion annually.
The Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation and The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration announce The Treat FTD Fund, a $10 million investment to develop effective treatments for frontotemporal degeneration, a complex form of dementia that affects more than 50,000 people in the United States. The fund was created thanks to a commitment of $5 million from The Lauder Foundation and Ronald S. Lauder, and $5 million from the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation.
University of Adelaide researchers have developed a new theory for the causes of dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases, involving an out-of-control immune system.
Using a new imaging agent that binds to tau protein and makes it visible in positron emission tomography (PET) scans, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that measures of tau are better markers of the cognitive decline characteristic of Alzheimer’s than measures of amyloid beta seen in PET scans.
What should caregivers do when their loved one is checking in on social media at the bank, essentially announcing their whereabouts? What if they are posting too often or don’t remember making online purchases?
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Chronic use of some drugs for heartburn and gastroesophageal reflux (GERD) speeds up the aging of blood vessels, according to a published paper in Circulation Research (early online), an American Heart Association journal. This accelerated aging in humans could lead to increased cardiovascular disease, vascular dementia and renal failure.
In Alzheimer’s disease, plaques of amyloid beta protein accumulate in the brain, damaging connections between neurons. Now, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School have found that the enzyme Protein Kinase C (PKC) alpha is necessary for amyloid beta to damage neuronal connections. They also identified genetic variations that enhance PKC alpha activity in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
Eating a meal of seafood or other foods containing omega-3 fatty acids at least once a week may protect against age-related memory loss and thinking problems in older people, according to a team of researchers at Rush University Medical Center and Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Early structural changes in the back of the eye — now visible with a newly developed eye scan — may indicate the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The research is being presented at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) this week in Seattle, Wash.
Despite studies that claim people with cancer are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease--raising the possibility that what triggers cancer also prevents the neurodegenerative disorder--a new investigation finds a more somber explanation. Many cancer patients don’t live long enough to get Alzheimer’s. The research, led by investigators at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, was published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B.
Study of more than 10,000 patients treated long term with the blood thinner, warfarin, reveals higher rates of dementia for patients with atrial fibrillation versus non-AF patients
Atlanta, GA—05/3/16— Angela Taylor, Director of Programs for The Lewy Body Dementia Association(LBDA) recently addressed attendees at the National Institutes of Health’s 2016 Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Dementia (ADRD) Summit on the need for an open national dialog on changing the nomenclature frequently used to describe different forms of dementia.
Structural biologists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and Janelia Research Campus/HHMI, have obtained snapshots of the activation of an important type of brain-cell receptor. Dysfunction of the receptor has been implicated in a range of neurological illnesses, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, depression, seizure, schizophrenia, autism, and injuries related to stroke.
To address the deficit of interventions for older children and adolescents with fragile X, MIND Institute researcher Andrea McDuffie and colleagues created an intervention that uses a shared storytelling paradigm and real-time parent coaching, all provided in the home through telecommunications. The small but important study found that the intervention improved adolescent boys’ abilities to produce longer sentences, use more diverse vocabulary and concentrate for longer time periods during conversational interactions.
Pinellas County a Model for Mosquito-Borne Disease Surveillance, Scientists Unravel the Genetic Evolution of Zika Virus, Worm Infection Counters Inflammatory Bowel Disease and more in the Infectious Diseases News Source
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.
Luciano D’Adamio, M.D., Ph.D., professor of microbiology & immunology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, has received a five-year, $3.6-million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue his research into how APP is processed in the brain.
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.
Long before Alzheimer’s disease can be diagnosed clinically, increasing difficulties building cognitive maps of new surroundings may herald the eventual clinical onset of the disorder, finds new research from Washington University in St. Louis.“These findings suggest that navigational tasks designed to assess a cognitive mapping strategy could represent a powerful new tool for detecting the very earliest Alzheimer’s disease-related changes in cognition,” said senior author Denise Head, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences.
There are currently no medications available to specifically treat Lewy Body dementia (LBD), and patients are typically treated with medications for Alzheimer’s. FAU’s College of Medicine is spearheading the South Florida site for the first U.S. clinical trial for LBD, the second-most common dementia after Alzheimer’s.
The UK has seen a 20% fall in the incidence of dementia over the past two decades, according to new research from England, led by the University of Cambridge, leading to an estimated 40,000 fewer cases of dementia than previously predicted. However, the study, published today in Nature Communications, suggests that the dramatic change has been observed mainly in men.
Georgetown University researchers are reporting the first case of Alzheimer’s disease diagnosed in an HIV-positive individual. The finding in a 71-year-old man triggers a realization about HIV survivors now reaching the age when Alzheimer’s risk begins to escalate.
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have identified a unique memory suppressor gene in the brain cells of Drosophila, the common fruit fly, a widely recognized substitute for human memory studies.
A $14.5 million NIA grant is supporting a new study led by researchers at Rush that aims to determine if an intervention known as the MIND diet can help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Tested in both mice and human cells and produced in the energy-producing mitochondria of cells, the proteins may lead to greater understanding of aging-related diseases from diabetes to Alzheimer's to cancer.
A recent study has demonstrated that, beyond causing memory problems, Alzheimer’s disease also impairs visual face perception. This finding may help families better understand their loved one's inevitable difficulties and lead to new avenues to postpone this painful aspect of the disease, such as the recognition of particular facial traits or voice recognition.
The blood-brain barrier has stymied direct treatment of brain disorders. In a recently published study, a Cornell researcher reports finding a way to pass therapeutics through the barrier, using readily-available agents.
Research from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai published in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia suggests that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) impairs insulin signaling in the portion of the brain responsible for regulating metabolism, making a person with AD more likely to develop diabetes
To understand how people can live longer throughout the world, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have teamed up with colleagues at University of Rome La Sapienza to study a group of 300 citizens, all over 100 years old, living in a remote Italian village nestled between the ocean and mountains on the country’s coast.
Every day, more than 15 million unpaid caregivers provide care to people with Alzheimer’s disease, with little outside support and often at the risk of their own health.
Cell’s protein factory may hold key to stalling cognitive decline.
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.
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).
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.
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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