Monday, October 31, 2016

Memory Cafes help engage people with Alzheimer’s, dementia

Joe Rennie of Evansville watches as his wife Pat paints a jack o' lantern during a Memory Cafe at the Alzheimer's Association in Evansville earlier this month. The cafe is a social engagement group for people with early-stage dementia and their partners. (Photo: Jason Clark / Courier & Press)

Tony Payne knew something was wrong. He was forgetting simple things like his grandchildren’s names.

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Sunday, October 30, 2016

Advanced analysis of brain structure shape may track progression to Alzheimer's disease

Credit: Martin Reuter, Ph.D., and Christian Wachinger, Ph.D., Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital

MRI data reveals structural asymmetries that vary among individuals, are greater among those who develop dementia

Use of a novel approach to analyzing brain structure that focuses on the shape rather than the size of particular features may allow identification of individuals in early presymptomatic stages of Alzheimer's disease. A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators using advanced computational tools to analyze data from standard MRI scans report that individuals with Alzheimer's disease, including those diagnosed partway through a multi-year study, had greater levels of asymmetry -- differences in shape between the left and right sides of the brain -- of key brain structures. Their study has been published online in the journal Brain.

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Saturday, October 29, 2016

Cardio Stress Response Reduced in Preclinical Alzheimer's

Patients in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease show significant decreases in cardiovascular response to stress compared with those who don't have the disease, new research suggests.

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Friday, October 28, 2016

Researchers Take First Steps Toward A Preventative Alzheimer's Pill: VIDEO

A preventative Alzheimer’s pill is the ideal end game for researchers studying the disease from many angles. While we’re not yet close to the goal, new research shows a way that it may be possible, using an approach similar to what has worked for managing other chronic conditions.

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Labels: Video

Thursday, October 27, 2016

New treatment may reverse Alzheimer's disease: VIDEO

Researchers have created a new drug in the hopes of both preventing and reversing the signs of Alzheimer's disease.

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Labels: Video

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Study identifies 2 new genes responsible for Alzheimer's disease among African-Americans

Image Source: USATODAY

Researchers have identified two new genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's disease (AD) among African Americans.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Want to ward off Alzheimer's? Better take your Nuak1: VIDEO

Could we fight Alzheimer's with medication the way we fight high cholesterol? New research offers hope(Credit: Siphotography/Depositphotos)

Nuak1. It sounds like it could be the name of an android or a distant moon in an upcoming sci-fi film. It is, in fact, an enzyme that recent research shows plays a key role in creating a protein in the brain that contributes to Alzheimer's disease. Manipulating Nuak1 to our advantage could eventually make treating the condition akin to fighting cholesterol with statins, say scientists.
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Labels: Video

Monday, October 24, 2016

Method for Detecting Homemade Bombs Now Targeting Indicator of Dementia

A technique using light intensity to detect explosive residue in homemade bombs, also known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), is now being used by researchers from the University of Adelaide in South Australia to identify vitamins in blood that are linked to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

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Sunday, October 23, 2016

New strategy to prevent Alzheimer's disease

Brain section from mouse carrying the dementia-causing P301S mutation in human tau shows accumulation of tau neurofibrillary tangles (in dark brown, left). When Nuak1 levels are decreased by 50 percent (P301S/Nuak1+/-; right), fewer tau tangles accumulate.

Credit: The Zoghbi lab/Baylor College of Medicine

Taking a pill that prevents the accumulation of toxic molecules in the brain might someday help prevent or delay Alzheimer's disease, according to scientists at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

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Saturday, October 22, 2016

Treatment approach used in cancer holds promise for Alzheimer's disease

Image Source: MEDICALNEWSTODAY

Researchers have developed a novel treatment that could block the development of Alzheimer's disease using microscopic droplets of fat to carry drugs into the brain. This treatment approach, which is used to target drugs to cancer cells, has been successfully applied to Alzheimer's disease for the first time, restoring memory loss in mice.
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Friday, October 21, 2016

Common prostate cancer treatment linked to later dementia, researcher says

Men being treated with prostate cancer therapies that reduce their testosterone levels are at greater risk of developing dementia within five years, a new study shows.
Credit: © Michail Petrov / Fotolia

A new retrospective study of patient medical records suggests that men with prostate cancer who are treated with testosterone-lowering drugs are twice as likely to develop dementia within five years as prostate cancer patients whose testosterone levels are not tampered with.
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Thursday, October 20, 2016

Wandering leaves Alzheimer’s patients at risk: VIDEO

It is lunch time at Dana Reynolds’ house.  She is busy in the kitchen making a sandwich for her father Henry Cernicek who just moved in August 26.

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Labels: Video

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Can this new drug slow the progression of Alzheimer's?

Alzheimer's researchers have almost gotten used to having their hopes dashed when a promising drug fails to live up to its potential in clinical trials. But now a new therapy is injecting fresh optimism into the field, and the results are prompting scientists to say it's the best news they've seen for treating this deadly disease in 25 years.
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Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Alzheimer's Remains a Top Priority for Big Pharma

Despite setbacks, Pfizer hasn't lost interest in Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been a graveyard for experimental medications. A recent study, for instance, reported that a whopping 99.6% of experimental AD drugs failed to improve patient outcomes over the course of 2002 to 2012.
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Monday, October 17, 2016

How Seth Rogen Is Getting Millennials to Fight Alzheimer’s

Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller

He founded Hilarity for Charity with his wife, whose mom has early-onset Alzheimer's

Some say laughter is the best medicine. Or as iconic comedian/actor/filmmaker Charlie Chaplin put it, “A day without laughter is a day wasted.”
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Sunday, October 16, 2016

How protein fragments associated with Alzheimer's could trigger Parkinson's

Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases are different neurodegenerative conditions that can sometimes affect the same person, which has led scientists to investigate possible links between the two. Now one team, reporting in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience, has identified how amyloid beta, the protein fragment strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease, can induce cellular changes that might lead to Parkinson's.
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Saturday, October 15, 2016

Researchers Create A Gene Therapy Treatment That May Prevent Alzheimer's Disease

Credit: Wikipedia

Alzheimer’s disease is devastating both for those who suffer from it and for those who love them. It is also expensive. It’s estimated that the current worldwide cost of coping with Alzheimer’s is $818 billion. A cure for Alzheimer’s is not available and current treatments for the disease focus on mitigating symptoms rather than eliminating causes. Recent research has provided evidence that the memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s may be preventable and reversible. Now, new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports on a gene therapy treatment that stopped the development of Alzheimer’s disease dead in it’s tracks.
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Friday, October 14, 2016

Online game invites public to help fight Alzheimer's

This file photo taken on March 18, 2011 shows a woman, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, walking in a corridor in a retirement house in Angervilliers, eastern France. For decades now, soaring population growth and ageing rates have been forecast to ignite a global explosion of Alzheimer's, the memory- and freedom-robbing disease afflicting mainly 65-plussers. But an unexpected, and hopeful, trend may be emerging. (AFP/Sastien BOZON)

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- A new online science game, called Stall Catchers, allows the general public to contribute to Alzheimer's disease research and help researchers search for a cure.

Developed by the Human Computation Institute, in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley, and other institutions, the game is part of the EyesOnALZ citizen science project that allow participants to look at movies of real blood vessels in mouse brains and search for clogged capillaries, or stalls, where blood is no longer flowing.

Previous research suggests that capillary stalls could be a key culprit in Alzheimer's disease.

Data analysis in Alzheimer's disease research, such as searching for stalls, is a time-consuming task that can cause a single research question to take up to a year to answer in the lab. The EyesOnALZ project aims to accelerate the analysis of these data with the help of citizen scientists playing Stall Catchers so that researchers can find targets for treatment of Alzheimer's faster.

"Today, we have a handful of lab experts putting their eyes on the research data," Pietro Michelucci, principal investigator for EyesOnALZ, was quoted as saying by a news release from UC Berkeley. "If we can enlist thousands of people to do that same analysis by playing an online game, then we have created a huge force multiplier in our fight against this dreadful disease."

The citizen science approach was developed by physicist Andrew Westphal, a senior fellow at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. It was first used in a project called Stardust@home, in which more than 30,000 amateur scientists have carried out more than 100 million searches to identify interstellar dust in collectors returned by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Stardust comet sampling mission.

Stardust@home led to the discovery of seven particles of likely interstellar origin, reported in the journal Science in 2014.

Referring to Stall Catchers, Westphal said "we are optimistic that this citizen science approach will be similarly successful in accelerating research aimed at finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease."

Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by NEWCHINA

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length

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Thursday, October 13, 2016

Researchers Identify Final Step Killing Damaged Neurons in Self-destructive Process

Researchers have identified the factor at the end of a molecular chain of events killing nerve cells which have been exposed to damage from disease processes such as stroke and possibly Alzheimer’s or a wide variety of other injuries.
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Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Alzheimer's animal study hints at gene therapy's potential promise

Image Source: SLIDESHARE

Gene therapy might one day offer a way to prevent and treat Alzheimer’s disease, new research in mice suggests.
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Labels: study

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

'MIND DIET' SHOWS PROMISE IN REDUCING RISK OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE: VIDEO

Doctors say making food together, eating together as a family and eating a largely plant-based diet is very promising for cutting the risk of Alzheimers disease. (KABC)

Many have no doubt heard omega-3 fats in salmon and walnuts are brain boosters, and it's also true of avocados, beets and oats.
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Labels: Video

Monday, October 10, 2016

A Little-Known Drug Company Could Have The Answer For Some Alzheimer's Patients

While many rightfully worry about major health issues such as heart disease, cancer and drug resistant infections, the biggest looming crisis could well be Alzheimer’s disease (AD). As baby boomers get older, more and more will suffer from this disease. Yet, other than palliative treatments such as Pfizer’s Aricept (generic name: donepezil) and Allergan’s Namenda (memantine), which only stave off AD for a relatively brief time, there are no drugs available to halt or reverse this crippling disease.
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Sunday, October 9, 2016

Different brain atrophy patterns may explain variability in Alzheimers disease symptoms

Credit: Xiuming Zhang, National University of Singapore

Mathematical modeling of the brain scans of patients with Alzheimer's disease and others at risk for the devastating neurodegenerative disorder has identified specific patterns of brain atrophy that appear to be related to the loss of particular cognitive abilities. In their report that has been published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the National University of Singapore describe how different atrophy patterns may explain the different ways that Alzheimer's disease can be manifested in individual patients.
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Saturday, October 8, 2016

Protein linked to high risk of Alzheimer's can be removed from brain without hindering learning, memory

New work lends support to the belief that reducing ApoE in the brain could eventually be a viable therapeutic option for treating Alzheimer's.

Credit: © cray7 / Fotolia

A protein linked to higher risk of Alzheimer's can be removed from the brains of mice without hindering memory and learning, according to a study that addresses whether potential therapeutics targeting this protein would have detrimental side effects.

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Friday, October 7, 2016

New online game invites public to help fight Alzheimer’s

A screenshot of the Stall Catchers game. Credit: UC Berkeley

A new online science game allows the general public to directly contribute to Alzheimer’s disease research and help scientists search for a cure.
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Thursday, October 6, 2016

Women’s better verbal skills may mask early Alzheimer’s: VIDEO

Women tested better when it came to verbal memory compared to men, even when scans showed similar brain changes, a new study shows.  IPGGUTENBERGUKLTD, GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

Early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in women may be more difficult than in men because older women tend to retain better verbal memory, according to new research.

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Labels: Video

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Alzheimer’s is slowly giving up its secrets – and ‘risk genes’ are just one piece of the puzzle

Although the causes of Alzheimer’s disease remain a mystery, genetic research is now providing clues about how the disease develops. We know that rare genetic mutations can cause early-onset Alzheimer’s, however, both genetic and environmental factors are involved in the more common, late-onset form of the disease. By collecting information on the genetic make-up of thousands of people, scientists in our group, and others, have identified nearly 30 gene variants that are more common in the disease.
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Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Alzheimer's drug trial failures may be due to second disease

40 to 60 percent of Alzheimer's patients may be living with a second dementia-causing disease, a possible explanation for the failure of Alzheimer's drugs in clinical trials. Photo by Kentucky University.

The failure of many Alzheimer's disease drug trials can be traced back to patients having a second dementia-causing ailment, Kentucky University scientists say.
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Monday, October 3, 2016

Genetic score predicts age-related risk of Alzheimer's disease, study says: VIDEO

Alzheimer's disease was once unique among illnesses in that a definitive diagnosis could be made only after death. Symptoms of the devastating assault on the brain could be seen from the outside, but those external signs also could be associated with other types of dementia.
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Sunday, October 2, 2016

Good Clinical Practices Important to Treat Alzheimer’s in People With Down Syndrome

More research is essential to improve protocols for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease in people with Down syndrome, but the ability to identify and care for those patients is enhanced significantly if clinicians are aware of specific circumstances and use a multi-disciplinary treatment strategy.

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Saturday, October 1, 2016

New program helps families with wandering Alzheimer's patients

Image Source: ALZHEIMERSCARERESOURCECENTER

A national company with a local branch is launching a free networking system to help families deal with wandering family members suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
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