Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Bilingual people may have an edge against Alzheimer's

People who speak two or more languages appear to weather the ravages of Alzheimer's disease better than people who have only mastered one language, a new Italian study suggests.
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Monday, January 30, 2017

Scientists Are Reversing the Symptoms of Alzheimer’s

THE REALITY OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

In the U.S. alone, approximately 5.1 million people may have Alzheimer’s disease. Although not associated directly with the aging process, older age groups are at higher risk of developing it. The illness doesn’t seem to be slowing down either. Between 2010 and 2050, the number of Americans age 65 and older will more than double to 88.5 million, the equivalent of 20 percent of the entire population.

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Sunday, January 29, 2017

Vitamin A deficiency may cause Alzheimer's to begin in the womb

New research suggests that vitamin A, previously associated with age-related cognitive impairment, could play a crucial role in the development of Alzheimer's disease.
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Labels: study

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Scientists stop and reverse Alzheimer's-related brain damage in mice

Neurons that contain the synthetic molecule (here shown in red) have no tau tangles (shown in green).    Image credit: Sarah DeVos

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative illness that affects millions of people in the United States. The condition is known to be gradual and irreversible - but emerging research may have found a way to reduce, and even reverse, some of the neurological damage that comes with the disorder.

Alzheimer's disease affects more than 5 million U.S. adults, according to the National Institute on Aging.

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Labels: study

Friday, January 27, 2017

Trying to solve the Alzheimer's puzzle

R. Scott Turner, Professor of Neurology and Director of the Memory Disorder Center at Georgetown University Hospital, points to PET scan results that are part of a study on Allheimer's disease at Georgetown University Hospital, on Tuesday, May 19, 2015, in Washington. Amyloid plaques are the Alzheimer’s culprit that gets all the attention. Now scientists are beginning to peer into the brains of people considered at high risk of getting Alzheimer’s to see if the disease’s other bad actor, tangle-forming tau, is lurking well before any memory symptoms begin. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
(Photo: Evan Vucci, AP)

Despite a 99% failure rate and another major setback last month, Alzheimer's researchers are plowing ahead with hundreds of experiments — and a boost in federal money —  to try to a crack a deadly disease that has flummoxed them for decades.
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Thursday, January 26, 2017

Alzheimer Society Promotes Early Detection Tool

As part of Alzheimer Awareness Month, the local Alzheimer Society is raising awareness about an online cognitive test that can detect early signs of dementia and will help to develop new treatments.
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Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Deep brain stimulation studies in Alzheimer's disease pose ethical challenges

Diagram of the brain of a person with Alzheimer's Disease. Credit: Wikipedia/public domain.

Promising, early studies of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease have paved a path for future clinical trials, but there are unique ethical challenges with this vulnerable population regarding decision making and post-study treatment access that need to be addressed as they ramp up, Penn Medicine researchers argue in a new review in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

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Tuesday, January 24, 2017

New PBS Film Addresses Alzheimer's, The 'Biggest Epidemic In Medical History'

A new film on PBS, set to air Wednesday, January 25, will address what experts say is an oncoming "health care tsunami" and a "the biggest epidemic in medical history."
(Credit: Twin Cities PBS)

“I’m not your mom. You’re my mom.”

Daisy Duarte spends just about every moment of every day caring for her mother, Sonja. She cleans her, dresses her, feeds her and tries to give her life as much meaning as she can for as long as she can.
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Monday, January 23, 2017

Sweating In A Sauna Might Help Keep Your Brain Healthy: VIDEO

Regular visits to the sauna can help lower the risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease as well as dying of heart ailments, a Finnish study suggests.
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Labels: Video

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Extremely High Aluminum Levels Found in Brains of Familial Alzheimer’s Patients

A group of patients with inherited forms of Alzheimer’s disease was found to have extremely high brain-aluminum levels, leading researchers to suggest there might be a link between genetic vulnerability to the condition and a higher susceptibility to accumulate aluminum in the brain.

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Saturday, January 21, 2017

Hospital-induced delirium may speed up dementia, study finds

Many recently hospitalized seniors experience delirium, a condition in which patients become severely confused and disoriented. New research suggests that delirium may have long-lasting effects on patients' mental decline, potentially also accelerating dementia.
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Labels: study

Friday, January 20, 2017

In Alzheimer's, excess tau protein damages brain's GPS

A grid cell from the entorhinal cortex (EC) of the mouse brain, firing repeatedly and uniformly in a grid-like pattern. When a mouse moves through its environment, grid cells are activated, with each cell representing a specific location. This creates a triangular coordinate system that allows for spatial navigation. Several grid cells create a triangular coordinate system that allows for spatial navigation. The accumulation of tau protein in the brain of a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease was shown to disrupt the function of grid cells, causing problems with navigation. The findings explains why Alzheimer's patients tend to wander and get lost. Credit: Lab of Karen Duff, PhD, Columbia University Medical Center

Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have discovered that the spatial disorientation that leads to wandering in many Alzheimer's disease patients is caused by the accumulation of tau protein in navigational nerve cells in the brain. The findings, in mice, could lead to early diagnostic tests for Alzheimer's and highlight novel targets for treating this common and troubling symptom.

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Labels: study

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Concussions May Accelerate Alzheimer's in At-Risk Populations

Concussions linked to accelerated cortical thickening in people genetically at-risk for Alzheimer's disease.

Concussions may be associated with accelerated cortical thickness and memory decline in Alzheimer's disease-relevant areas, according to a study published in Brain.
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Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Brain Iron May Predict Progression in Alzheimer's

Image Source: UCSDNEURO

A new study suggests brain iron levels may predict disease progression in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) who carry the APOE ε4 risk allele.
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Labels: study

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Nucleation Process May Offer New Research Approach to Prevent Alzheimer’s

A change in the shape of a protein, rather than its size, is the driving force in small protein aggregates morphing into the insoluble structures present in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients — a process known as nucleation, according to a study.

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Monday, January 16, 2017

Concussion linked to brain changes in people at genetic risk for Alzheimer's

Moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury is a known risk factor for diseases that gradually destroy the brain - such as late-onset Alzheimer's disease. Now, a new study links mild traumatic brain injury, or concussion, in people at genetic risk for Alzheimer's to accelerated brain deterioration and mental decline associated with the disease.

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Sunday, January 15, 2017

Antidepressant use doubles hip fracture risk among elders with Alzheimer’s disease

A study found that even in people without Alzheimer’s, the regular use of antidepressants was associated with two times higher risk of hip fracture among controls. (Shutterstock)

Older adults with Alzheimer’s disease who are on antidepressants for treating symptoms of dementia, including insomnia and anxiety, may be at twice at risk of hip fracture, researchers report.
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Labels: study

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Rehfeld's Display Creating Awareness For Alzheimer's Association: VIDEO

Anybody who's been impacted by Alzheimer's knows how much the disease can tragically take over a life. That's why a local artist and Rehfeld's Art and Framing are teaming up to help create awareness. 

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Labels: Video

Friday, January 13, 2017

High Cholesterol and Egg Intake Do Not Increase Risk of Memory Disorders, Study Shows

Neither high cholesterol intake nor daily egg consumption increases the risk of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease (AD), according to a study of Finnish men.

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Labels: study

Thursday, January 12, 2017

What are the Stages of Alzheimer's Disease?

Image Source: THEFITINDIAN

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive degenerative disorder that becomes worse over time. It involves a gradual loss of memory, as well as changes in behavior, thinking, and language skills.
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Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Couch potatoes 'at highest risk of dementia': Skipping exercise is as dangerous as carrying the Alzheimer's gene

Image Source: ACTIVE

Couch potatoes are just as likely to get dementia as those born with the Alzheimer's gene, a new study claims.
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Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer's by Avoiding Aluminum

(Copyright Fotolia)

By Sylvia Booth Hubbard  

A British study may provide proof that aluminum does indeed have a role in Alzheimer's disease. Although a link had been suspected by many scientists and health authorities for more than 50 years, many claimed there was no definite proof.
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Monday, January 9, 2017

Mouse model points to potential new treatment for Alzheimer's disease

Image Source: IMGARCADE

Treatment with an inhibitor of 12/15-lipoxygenase, an enzyme elevated in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), reverses cognitive decline and neuropathology in an AD mouse model, reports a new study in Biological Psychiatry. The effects were observed after the AD-like phenotype was already established in the mice, which is promising for its potential therapeutic use, as neuropathology tends to develop many years before the appearance of AD symptoms in patients.
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Sunday, January 8, 2017

Why Do Humans Still Have a Gene That Increases the Risk of Alzheimer's?

When the former nurse Jamie Tyrone learned that she carried two copies of a gene called ApoE4, she “lost hope and direction,” and her “days were filled with fear, anxiety and sadness.” It meant that as she got older, she would likely develop Alzheimer’s disease, as her father had done before her.
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Saturday, January 7, 2017

Evidence of Alzheimer's in patients with Lewy body disease tracks with course of dementia

High magnification photomicrographs of a tau tangle (left) and an alpha-synuclein Lewy body (right).   Credit: Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Patients who had a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) with dementia (PDD) or dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and had higher levels of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology in their donated post-mortem brains also had more severe symptoms of these Lewy body diseases (LBD) during their lives, compared to those whose brains had less AD pathology, according to research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In particular, the degree of abnormal tau protein aggregations, indicative of AD, most strongly matched the clinical course of the LBD patients who showed evidence of dementia prior to their deaths, the team reports in The Lancet Neurology First Online, ahead of the January print edition.

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Friday, January 6, 2017

Traffic exposure may increase risk of dementia, study finds

Dementia affects tens of millions of people worldwide. Common risk factors include age, family history, and genetics. But new research points to an additional factor that might affect the chances of developing dementia: living near a major, busy road.
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Labels: study

Thursday, January 5, 2017

Researchers identify different 'types' of Alzheimer’s based on protein clumps in the brain

An international team of researchers has found evidence that the specific type of protein clumps in a person’s brain might help identify different 'types' of Alzheimer’s disease.

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Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Tips to delay Alzheimer's: VIDEO

By the time someone is 65 years old, there is a 10 percent chance that they will develop Alzheimer’s disease. By the time they reach 85, their chances jump to 50 percent. But research is showing that there are certain healthy habits you can take up now to reduce your risk of getting Alzheimer’s.

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Labels: Video

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Brain Challenge Test to Predict Alzheimer's Disease May Soon be a Reality: VIDEO

What if a simple brain challenge and EEG could predict Alzheimer’s disease 20 years before symptoms show up? Doctors in California are working to make that a reality.


The proteins beta-amyloid and tau are established markers of Alzheimer’s and changes in their levels may signal disease. Someday, a simple test at the computer and a non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG) scan may do the same thing.
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Labels: Video

Monday, January 2, 2017

Alzheimer’s disease found to be a diabetic disorder of the brain

Researchers at Tohoku University have found a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, by noticing a similarity in the way insulin signaling works in the brain and in the pancreas of diabetic patients.

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Sunday, January 1, 2017

From Psychedelics To Alzheimer's, 2016 Was A Good Year For Brain Science

Image by Catherine MacBride/Getty Images

With a president-elect who has publicly supported the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism, suggested that climate change is a hoax dreamed up by the Chinese, and appointed to his Cabinet a retired neurosurgeon who doesn't buy the theory of evolution, things might look grim for science.

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