Alzheimer’s disease tagged posts

Greg Van Stavern, MD, (seated) and Rajendra Apte, MD, PhD, examine Kathleen Eisterhold’s eyes, using technology that one day may make it possible to screen patients for Alzheimer’s disease during an eye exam. In a small study, the eye test was able to detect the presence of Alzheimer’s damage in older patients with no symptoms of the disease.
Credit: Matt Miller

Noninvasive test may screen for disease before symptoms appear. It may be possible in the future to screen patients for Alzheimer’s disease using an eye exam. Using technology similar to what is found in many eye doctors’ offices, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have detected evidence suggesting Alzheimer’s in older patients who had no symptoms of the disease.

Their study, involving 30 patients, ...

Whole-brain low-intensity pulsed ultrasound therapy markedly improves cognitive dysfunctions in mouse models of dementia -Crucial roles of endothelial nitric oxide synthase Journal: Brain Stimulation. DOI: 10.1016/j.brs.2018.05.012

Ultrasound waves applied to the whole brain improve cognitive dysfunction in mice with conditions simulating vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The research, conducted by scientists at Tohoku University in Japan, suggests that this type of therapy may also benefit humans.

The team, led by cardiologist Hiroaki Shimokawa, found that applying low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) to the whole brain of the mice improved blood vessel formation and nerve cell regeneration without having obvious side effects...

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...