Alzheimer's Disease News and Research

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Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an irreversible, progressive brain disease that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills and, eventually, the ability to carry out the simplest tasks of daily living. In most people with AD, symptoms first appear after age 60. AD is the most common cause of dementia among older people, but it is not a normal part of aging. Dementia refers to a decline in cognitive function that interferes with daily life and activities. AD starts in a region of the brain that affects recent memory, then gradually spreads to other parts of the brain. Although treatment can slow the progression of AD and help manage its symptoms in some people, currently there is no cure for this devastating disease.

New technique may offer a pathway to treat undruggable diseases

Certain diseases, including Alzheimer's, are currently considered "undruggable" because traditional small molecule drugs can't interfere with the proteins responsible for the illnesses.

2 Mar 2023

Lieber Institute awarded $1 million grant to foster racial diversity across neuroscience

The Lieber Institute for Brain Development has received a $1 million, two-year grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to support the work of the African Ancestry Neuroscience Research Initiative (AANRI) to promote racial equity throughout the field of neuroscience.

28 Feb 2023

Artificial BBB model can help determine how well antibody-based therapies can enter the brain

A research group at Uppsala University has developed a simple and effective artificial blood-brain barrier model that can be used to determine how well antibody-based therapies can enter the brain.

27 Feb 2023

Scientists discover two ways to preserve diseased upper motor neurons in ALS

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered two ways to preserve diseased upper motor neurons that would normally be destroyed in ALS, based on a study in mice. Upper motor neurons initiate movement, and they degenerate in ALS.

24 Feb 2023

Mount Sinai researchers illuminate the role of DNA methylation in Alzheimer's disease

Mount Sinai researchers have published a study in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association that sheds new light on the role of DNA methylation in Alzheimer's disease (AD).

23 Feb 2023

ApoE4 from neurons plays a critical role in Alzheimer's disease

Of all the known genetic risk factors for late-onset Alzheimer's disease, the strongest is a gene for the protein called ApoE4.

22 Feb 2023

"Poisoned" form of a protein could set off events that encourage cancer growth

Scientists at Scripps Research, with collaborators in Japan, have discovered how a "poisoned" form of a protein could set off a cascade of events that encourage the growth of some cancers.

17 Feb 2023

Study: Platelets likely to perform a protective function in AD

A new research paper was published on the cover of Aging entitled, "Immune-mediated platelet depletion augments Alzheimer's disease neuropathological hallmarks in APP-PS1 mice."

16 Feb 2023

U.S. people show interest in using genetic technologies to improve offspring education

An article published today in the journal Science indicates that a substantial proportion of Americans are willing to use an essentially unregulated reproductive genetic technology to increase the chances of having a baby who is someday admitted to a top-100 ranked college.

10 Feb 2023

Researchers establish and characterize a stable iPSC line for modeling human disease

Bill Skarnes and team established and characterized a stable iPSC line, KOLF2.1J, to act as a high-quality baseline platform for modeling human disease.

3 Feb 2023

Exploring how smoking cannabis alters the oral microbiome and its impact on the brain

Inspiration strikes when you least expect it. For Wei Jiang, M.D., a professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), inspiration came in 2018 on a smoke-filled boat tour around Amsterdam during an international conference.

30 Jan 2023

New technologies reveal cross-cutting breakdowns in Alzheimer’s disease

A figure from the paper depicts pathways perturbed in Alzheimer's disease. Below examples are listed for each pathway by major brain cell type. Image Credit: The Picower Institute.

4 Jan 2023

UCLA researchers receive NIH award to develop next-generation versions of miniature microscope

The UCLA creators of a miniature microscope that can be mounted on the heads of lab animals to provide an invaluable view into the brain's inner workings have received a $4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop next-generation versions of their "miniscope."

9 Aug 2022

New method can identify the vast number of molecules derived from food

An international team of scientists, led by researchers at University of California San Diego, report a new method called untargeted metabolomics to identify the vast number of molecules derived from food that were previously unidentified, but that appear in our blood and our stool.

From UC San Diego 11 Jul 2022

Positive social interactions associated with purposefulness in older adults

Having positive social interactions is associated with older adults' sense of purposefulness, which can fluctuate from day to day, according to research from the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

7 Jul 2022

New biomedical research tool may help advance molecular diagnostics and drug discovery

A new biomedical research tool that enables scientists to measure hundreds of functional proteins in a single cell could offer new insights into cell machinery.

30 Jun 2022

Understanding the regulation of intramembrane proteases across the tree of life

Working with tiny bacteria, Michigan State University researchers led by Lee Kroos have made a discovery that could have big implications for biology.

27 Apr 2022

Researchers shed light on development and treatment of brain diseases

It is highly regulated what goes into the brain and what does not. The phagocytes that encapsulate the blood arteries in the brain and maintain the blood-brain barrier have been examined by researchers at the University of Freiburg’s Faculty of Medicine.

25 Apr 2022

Researchers analyze single-cell DNA sequencing for having a significant role in Alzheimer’s disease

The loss of functional neurons in the brain is a characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. What, on the other hand, is the source of this loss?

21 Apr 2022

Mice study explains why humans expressing CHT gene variant exhibit attentional vulnerabilities

Mutant mice are providing scientists with a new neurobiological framework to understand the brain changes observed in distractible humans who carry a common gene variant whose frequency has been associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

8 Apr 2022