Alzheimer’s disease tagged posts

Learning Impairments, Memory Deficits, and Neuropathology in Aged Tau Transgenic Mice Are Dependent on Leukotrienes Biosynthesis: Role of the cdk5 Kinase Pathway. Molecular Neurobiology, 2018; DOI: 10.1007/s12035-018-1124-7

Reversing memory deficits and impairments in spatial learning is a major goal in the field of dementia research. A lack of knowledge about cellular pathways critical to the development of dementia, however, has stood in the way of significant clinical advance. But now, researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM) are breaking through that barrier. They show, for the first time in an animal model, that tau pathology – the second-most important lesion in the brain in patients with Alzheimer’s disease – can be reversed by a drug.

“We show t...

Antibodies against APOE (red) bind to amyloid plaques (blue) in brain tissue from people with Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers have found that the antibody can sweep away the damaging plaques, at least in mice, which could lead to a therapy for the devastating disease. Credit: Monica Xiong

Potential therapy removes APOE and plaques from brain. Amyloid beta plaques are a characteristic sign of Alzheimer’s disease. But nestled within the plaques are small amounts of another Alzheimer’s protein: APOE. Now, researchers have shown that an antibody not only targets APOE for removal but sweeps away plaques in mice. The findings could lead to a way to halt the brain damage triggered by amyloid plaques while the disease is still in its early stages, perhaps before symptoms appear...

3-4 cups of Coffee a day linked to Longer Life

Three or 4 cups a day confers greatest benefit, except in pregnancy and for women at risk of fracture. Drinking coffee is “more likely to benefit health than to harm it” for a range of health outcomes, say researchers in The BMJ today. They bring together evidence from over 200 studies and find that drinking 3 to 4 cups of coffee a day is associated with a lower risk of death and getting heart disease compared with drinking no coffee. Coffee drinking is also associated with lower risk of some cancers, diabetes, liver disease and dementia.

However, they say drinking coffee in pregnancy may be associated with harms, and may be linked to a very small increased risk of fracture in women...

This image shows DAG (green-labeled peptide) targeting to the brain blood vessel (labeled red) in the hippocampus of the Alzheimer brain. Credit: Ruoslahti Lab, SBP

Peptide recognizes vasculature associated with brain inflammation. 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.

“We have identified a peptide (DAG) that recognizes a protein that is elevated in the brain blood vessels of AD mice and human patients...