Bringing diagnostics and therapy closer together - that is the basic concept behind theranostics. Through further development of its PET/MR scanners, Siemens Healthineers aims to advance this approach. Andreas Schneck, Head of the MRI Division at Siemens Healthineers, talks about the new system, which was also presented at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) in Vienna, and its advantages in…
There is no known cure for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), although prescription drug-based treatments that can slow AD progression in some patients are starting to enter clinical use. Biomarkers, quantifiable characteristics of biological processes or pathological conditions of the body, are making it possible to help identify and measure the presence and extent of AD and its degenerative…
Blood-based biomarker (BBB) tests may represent the best weapon to combat the soaring rates of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) throughout the world. Existing clinically validated tests are currently deployed to facilitate diagnosis, to monitor disease and effectiveness of treatments, to quantify progression, and to determine if a patient is appropriate for treatment or participation in a clinical…
More than just a sports injury: A new study shows that head trauma may activate latent viruses, leading to neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Researchers have developed a model to predict cognitive decline in patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia due to Alzheimer's disease. The next step is an app that uses this model.
Researchers have now shown that a noninvasive treatment that stimulates gamma frequency brain waves may hold promise for treating memory impairment and other cognitive effects of chemotherapy.
A team from Geneva demonstrates the value of imaging to detect the presence of tau protein in the brain to predict cognitive decline due to Alzheimer’s disease.
Neurodegeneration, or the gradual loss of neuron function, is one of the key features of Alzheimer's disease. However, it doesn't affect all parts of the brain equally.
A new blood test that can track and follow the neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease - and exclude other dementias.
Researchers from Japan have developed a method to detect build-up of amyloid β in the brain, a characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, from biomarkers in blood samples.
An advanced form of cardiac MRI has for the first-time enabled clinicians to measure the effectiveness of chemotherapy in patients with the life-limiting condition ‘stiff heart syndrome’.
A sensor identifies misfolded protein biomarkers in the blood. This offers a chance to detect Alzheimer's disease before any symptoms occur. Researchers intend to bring it to market maturity.
Researchers have shown that aggregation of amyloid-beta, one of two key proteins implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, causes cells to overheat and ‘fry like eggs.’
A mathematical analysis of data obtained with a MRI approach can identify brain cell damage in people at early stages of Alzheimer's.
When combined with genetic risk factors, the test was up to 93 percent accurate at identifying people at risk of Alzheimer's dementia.
For the first time, researchers have used human data to quantify the speed of different processes that lead to Alzheimer’s disease and found that it develops in a very different way than previously thought. Their results could have important implications for the development of potential treatments.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Aduhelm (aducanumab) for the treatment of Alzheimer’s, a debilitating disease affecting 6.2 million Americans. Aduhelm was approved using the accelerated approval pathway, which can be used for a drug for a serious or life-threatening illness that provides a meaningful therapeutic advantage over existing treatments.
One of the characteristic hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the buildup of amyloid-beta plaques in the brain. Most therapies designed to treat AD target these plaques, but they’ve largely failed in clinical trials. New research by scientists at the Salk Institute upends conventional views of the origin of one prevalent type of plaque, indicating a reason why treatments have been…
A team of neuroscientists has identified a potential means to address the loss of cognitive function due to Alzheimer’s disease by targeting protein synthesis in mice. Their findings, reported in the journal Science Signaling, reveal that synthetic pharmaceuticals could rescue the activity of brain cells needed for memory formation.
A recent preclinical study from scientists at Sunnybrook Research Institute, Canadian Blood Services and the University of Toronto has demonstrated that focused ultrasound improves the delivery of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg), a blood product composed of antibodies from healthy donors, previously shown to have potential in treating a subgroup of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia. Still incurable, it directly affects nearly one million people in Europe, and indirectly millions of family members as well as society as a whole. In recent years, the scientific community has suspected that the gut microbiota plays a role in the development of the disease.
More than 32,000 people from over 160 countries registered for The Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC 2020) in July. This largest and most influential international conference on dementia science had to be held virtually this year, when important highlights were aired. The ability to identify individuals at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), or at early…
Nuclear Medicine techniques have an important role in the clinical diagnosis of patients with cognitive impairment. And such techniques are not only valuable in a clinical setting but also in research, according one of the leading experts in the field, Javier Arbizu, who is Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Navarra, Spain.
A gene has been discovered that can naturally suppress the signs of Alzheimer’s Disease in human brain cells, in research led by Queen Mary University of London. The scientists have also developed a new rapid drug-screening system for treatments that could potentially delay or prevent the disease. The main challenge in testing Alzheimer’s drugs in clinical trials is that participants need to…
Neurons that are responsible for new experiences interfere with the signals of neurons that contain memories and thereby disturb the recall of memories – at least in mice. The research group of Martin Fuhrmann of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) reports this phenomenon in the scientific journal “Nature Neuroscience“. The results of this study potentially shed new…
Brain imaging of pathological tau-protein “tangles” reliably predicts the location of future brain atrophy in Alzheimer’s patients a year or more in advance, according to a new study by scientists at the UC San Francisco Memory and Aging Center. In contrast, the location of amyloid “plaques,” which have been the focus of Alzheimer’s research and drug development for decades, was found…
A protein complex has been shown to play a key role in preventing the build-up of toxic plaques in the brain linked to neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s disease. An international team of researchers from the Universities of Leeds, Stanford (USA) and Konstanz (Germany) have discovered that the nascent polypeptide-associated complex (NAC) helps to prevent the…
In a new study, researchers at the Biodesign Institute explore a safe and simple treatment for one of the most devastating and perplexing afflictions: Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Lead authors Ramon Velazquez and Salvatore Oddo, along with their colleagues in the Arizona State University (ASU)-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center (NDRC), investigate the effects of choline, an important…
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have identified in live human brains new radioactive “tracer” molecules that bind to and “light up” tau tangles, a protein associated with a number of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease and other related dementias.
Using artificial intelligence, metabolic brain changes can be identified earlier leading to timely diagnosis and intervention of Alzheimer’s disease.
Built as the first commercially available scanner to deliver truly digital PET, the Vereos PET/CT, from Philips, offers revolutionary Digital Photon Counting technology. The science behind this scanner evolution is ‘quite complicated’, agrees Piotr Maniawski, Director of Clinical Science Nuclear Medicine at Philips Healthcare, yet the improved performance is significant, particularly when…
Researchers at the University of Florida have discovered that a modified version of an important immune cell protein could be used to treat Alzheimer's disease. The study reveals that soluble versions of a protein called TLR5 can reduce the buildup of amyloid plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's disease model mice and prevent the toxic peptide that forms these plaques from killing neurons.
The APOE gene, the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, may play a more prominent role in disease development among women than men, according to new research from the Vanderbilt Memory and Alzheimer’s Center. The research confirmed recent studies that carrying the APOE ε4 allele has a greater association with Alzheimer’s disease among women compared to men, and went one…
A study by scientists of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) points to a novel potential approach against Alzheimer’s disease. In studies in mice, the researchers were able to show that blocking a particular receptor located on astrocytes normalized brain function and improved memory performance. Astrocytes are star-shaped, non-neuronal cells involved in the regulation of…
Inflammatory reactions can change the brain’s immune cells in the long term – meaning that these cells have an ‘immunological memory’. This memory may influence the progression of neurological disorders that occur later in life, and is therefore a previously unknown factor that could influence the severity of these diseases. Scientists at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases…
Together with three other neuroscientists Professor Christian Haass, speaker of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) Munich site and Professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, receives the world’s most valuable prize for brain research. The 2018 Brain Prize, awarded by the Lundbeck Foundation in Denmark, is worth one million Euros. Awarded annually, it…
The mass pursuit of a conspicuous suspect in Alzheimer’s disease may have encumbered research success for decades. Now, a new data analysis that has untangled evidence amassed in years of Alzheimer’s studies encourages researchers to refocus their investigations. Heaps of plaque formed from amyloid-beta that accumulate in afflicted brains are what stick out under the microscope in tissue…
A team of researchers from the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute have found that gradually depleting an enzyme called BACE1 completely reverses the formation of amyloid plaques in the brains of mice with Alzheimer’s disease, thereby improving the animals’ cognitive function. The study, which will be published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, raises hopes that drugs targeting…
What if one of the prime suspects behind Alzheimer’s disease was a case of mistaken identity? Amyloid plaques, sticky buildup that accumulates in and around neurons in the brain, have long been believed to be an indicator of neurodegenerative disease. Most clinical drug trials for Alzheimer’s disease treatment have failed, presumably because they target these plaques. But according to Raymond…
Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified a peptide that could lead to the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The discovery, published in Nature Communications, may also provide a means of homing drugs to diseased areas of the brain to treat AD, Parkinson’s disease, as well as glioblastoma, brain injuries and stroke. “Our goal was to…
Scientists drilling down to the molecular roots of Alzheimer’s disease have encountered a good news/bad news scenario. A major player is a gene called TREM2, mutations of which can substantially raise a person’s risk of the disease. The bad news is that in the early stages of the disease, high-risk TREM2 variants can hobble the immune system’s ability to protect the brain from amyloid beta,…
Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) are tackling Alzheimer’s disease with a new study that intervenes decades before the disease develops.
Long before symptoms of Alzheimer's disease become apparent to patients and their families, biological changes are occurring within the brain. Amyloid plaques, which are clusters of protein fragments, along with tangles of protein known as tau, form in the brain and grow in number, eventually getting in the way of the brain's ability to function. These biological changes can be detected early in…
Illuminating blood vessels, opening the blood-brain barrier and delivering drugs. What will be the next big thing that tiny microbubbles can do?
Researchers from Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), New York State Psychiatric Institute, and NewYork-Presbyterian reported that an odor identification test may prove useful in predicting cognitive decline and detecting early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Their two studies, presented at the Alzheimer’s Association’s International Conference in Toronto, Canada, suggest that the…
The cause of Alzheimer’s disease remains unknown. Early diagnosis is currently not possible as clinical symptoms only occur once a large number of neurones in the brain have already been destroyed. There is no treatment available either.
‘The combination of nuclear medicine and modern imaging procedures such as CT and MRI is becoming increasingly important in the diagnosis, treatment planning and aftercare of cancerous diseases,’ explains Professor Katrine Åhlström Riklund, who presides over the newly established European Society for Hybrid Medical Imaging, ESHI.
More than five million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Of them, 400,000 also have Down syndrome. Both groups have similar looking brains with higher levels of the protein beta amyloid.
Degeneration of the white matter of the brain may be an early marker of specific types of Alzheimer's disease (AD), including early-onset AD, according to results of a new study published in the journal Radiology.
Low-frequency alternating magnetic fields such as those generated by overhead power lines are considered a potential health risk because epidemiological studies indicate that they may aggravate, among other things, neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). However, a recent study by researchers at the Institute of Pathobiochemistry at the…
Researchers the world over are advancing positron emission tomography (PET) as an effective method of early detection for Alzheimer’s disease, a currently incurable and deadly neurological disorder. Three studies presented at SNM’s 58th Annual Meeting are providing new insights into the development of Alzheimer’s disease while opening the door to future clinical screening and treatments.
Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Germany, has presented positive data on a global Phase II study with the novel positron emission tomography (PET) tracer florbetaben (BAY 94-9172) at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease (ICAD) in Vienna, Austria. This study showed that patients with a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer´s disease could be differentiated from age-matched healthy volunteers…
Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Germany, has presented positive data on a global Phase II study with the novel positron emission tomography (PET) tracer florbetaben (BAY94-9172) at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease (ICAD) in Vienna, Austria. This study showed that patients with a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer´s disease could be differentiated from age-matched healthy volunteers…
The so-called 11-labeled Pittsburgh Compound B ([11C]PiB) type of positron emission tomography (PET) may be useful in a non-invasive assessment of the formation of Alzheimer's disease-related plaques, according to a study that will appear in the October 2008 issue of Archives of Neurology.
High-Density-Lipoprotein-Cholesterol is a so-called "good" cholestoral because it seems to protect the vessels from fat deposits. Hereby they can prevent atherosclerosis. The Whitehall II Study in the UK searched for the specific connection between low level of HDL and dementia risk and published now their results.
Amyloidb (Ab) plaque formation is a hallmark of Alzheimers disease (AD) and precedes the onset of dementia. Australian researchers reported the first data on the validity in humans of a new PET tracer binding to Ab. Their data suggest that 18F-BAY94-9172 of Bayer Schering Pharma AG can reliably detect Ab deposition and thereby aid early diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and therapeutic…
A study of european scientists reveals that misfolded amyloid beta proteins, generally regarded as the cause for Alzheimer's disease, could also cause glaucoma. The scientists tested several drugs and their effect on the progression of glaucoma - pharmaceuticals usually used to treat Alzheimer's disease had most effect.
When the Siemens board of directors announced its decision for the new Siemens CEO on Sunday, the economic world was surprised: Not only that the name Peter Löscher was never mentioned in the previous discussions about a successor of Klaus Kleinfeld, but hardly anybody knew Loescher´s name in any enconomic context.
Professor Erich Reinhardt (below), President and CEO of Siemens Medical Solutions and member of the Board of Management of Siemens AG, discusses the company's current and future strategies.
Peter Loescher has worked at the cutting edge of the pharmaceutical industry for 17 years. In the latter part of this period, for example, he headed Hoechst's division in Japan, where he was also spokesperson for the European pharmaceutical industry, negotiating with the Japanese government during its healthcare reform in 2002.