News • PET imaging
Super-resolution enables detailed brain imaging
A new imaging technique has the potential to detect neurological disorders at their earliest stages, enabling physicians to diagnose and treat patients more quickly.
Alzheimer's
News • Neurology
Chemical reactions for understanding Alzheimer's disease
Research teams from TU Darmstadt, British and US universities are focusing on one possible main process that leads to the death of brain cells in their investigation of the causes and mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease.
Aducanumab
FDA grants accelerated approval for Alzheimers drug
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.
News • Battle for the brain
New Alzheimer's treatment approach targets tau
A new idea for treating Alzheimer’s disease could eradicate the toxic proteins most closely linked to cognitive decline in the places where they do the most damage, a study from researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons suggests. The study was published online in Science Translational Medicine.
News • Challenges of an aging society
Dementia and gun ownership: an issue that needs regulation
In Sweden, there are over 2 million legally owned firearms. At the same time, up to 150,000 people live with a diagnosis of dementia. In an aging society such as Sweden, legislators will face challenges in gun ownership. A new registry-based observational study by researchers from NVS, Karolinska Institutet, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease shows a need for strategies for this…
News • Tau pathology in the brain
Defining the 4 subtypes of Alzheimer's
Alzheimer's disease is characterized by the abnormal accumulation and spread of the tau protein in the brain. An international study can now show how tau spreads according to four distinct patterns that lead to different symptoms with different prognoses of the affected individuals. The study was published in Nature Medicine.
News • From foe to friend?
Some Alzheimer’s plaques may be protective, not destructive
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…
News • Neurodegeneration research
Alzheimer's: Faster accumulation of tau protein in women's brains
Alzheimer’s disease seems to progress faster in women than in men. The protein tau accumulates at a higher rate in women, according to research from Lund University in Sweden. The study was recently published in Brain. Over 30 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease worldwide, making it the most common form of dementia. Tau and beta-amyloid are two proteins known to aggregate and…
News • DZNE and Eisai team up
Research collaboration to fight neurodegenerative disorders
The German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and Eisai Co., Ltd. announced that both parties have entered into a research collaboration agreement aiming to create potential novel treatments for neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) which modulate immune competence in neurons and glia cells.
News • Rescuing brain cell activity
Alzheimer's: Promising avenue to restore cognitive function
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.
News • Impact on brain function
Early link between proteins associated to Alzheimer's disease
Study conducted by researchers from the GIGA CRC In vivo Imaging laboratory at ULiège demonstrates, for the first time in humans, how the first deposits of tau proteins in the brainstem are associated with neurophysiological processes specific to the early stages of Alzheimer's disease development.
Video • Enhanced therapeutic delivery
Focused ultrasound shows promise for Alzheimer's treatment support
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.
News • Dementia study
Gut microbiota plays a role in the development of Alzheimer
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.
News • Trajectory browser
New tool shows main highways of disease development
As people get older they often jump from disease to disease and carry the burden of more chronic diseases at once. But is there a system in the way diseases follow each other? Danish researchers have for the past six years developed a comprehensive tool, the Danish Disease Trajectory Browser, that utilizes 25 years of public health data from Danish patients to explore what they call the main…
Article • Overheard at AAIC 2020
Exciting Alzheimer's findings: ’flu vaccines and P-tau217
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…
Article • Neuroradiology
Alzheimer’s research: A lost century
Lack of understanding around Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has significantly slowed advances in the treatment of this incurable condition. Imaging has proved to be reliable in differentiating between AD and other forms of dementia, and its contribution will continue to help develop profiling, an increasingly interesting approach for the development of new and more efficient drugs, according to Sven…
News • Prevention research
These 10 risk factors must be tackled to prevent Alzheimer's
There are at least 10 risk factors that appear to have a significant impact on a person’s likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease that could be targeted with preventative steps, new research suggests. Focusing on these factors, which include cognitive activity, high body mass index in late life, depression, diabetes, and high blood pressure, could provide clinicians with an evidence…
Article • FDG-PET imaging of the brain
The nuclear medicine approach to Alzheimer’s
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.
News • Neurodegeneration research
Developing a rapid drug-testing platform for Alzheimer’s
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…
News • Neurodegeneration
Alzheimer research: Noise-inducing neurons shut down memories
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…
News • Optical coherence tomography
Retinal texture could provide early biomarker of Alzheimer's disease
New imaging technique combines two technologies to spot early warning signs of Alzehimer's disease in mice.
News • Dynamic measurement of glucose in brain
New MRI technique for early detection of Alzheimer's
A research team co-led by a scientist at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has discovered a new, non-invasive way to detect early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, helping patients get the necessary treatments around 10 years before any symptoms appear. In collaboration with Johns Hopkins University in the US, Dr Kannie Chan Wai-yan, Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering…
News • Amyloid beta regulation
CRISPR helps identify potential Alzheimer's-related protein
Experts at the University of Tokyo have identified a new protein in the pathway that leads to Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers used the “molecular scissors” of CRISPR/Cas9 to search for new genes related to the neurodegenerative disease. The exact causes of Alzheimer’s disease remain unknown, but one of the most well- supported theories focuses on a protein called amyloid beta.…
News • Look out!
Eye movement test confirms brain-ageing effects
University of Liverpool researchers have used a newly developed eye movement test to improve the understanding of how parts of the brain work. Healthy, older adults are widely reported to experience cognitive decline, including impairments in inhibitory control (the ability to stop ourselves thinking or doing things). However, because ageing effects on inhibitory control are highly variable…
News • Dementia diagnostics
Lack of sleep might throw off Alzheimer’s test
A preliminary study has found that when young, healthy men were deprived of just one night of sleep, they had higher levels of tau, a biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease, in their blood than when they had a full, uninterrupted night of rest. The study is published in the January 8, 2020, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Tau is a protein found in…
