Fractured sleep, daytime sleepiness and other signs of disturbance in one’s circadian rhythm are common complaints of people with Alzheimer’s disease, and the problems only get worse as the disease progresses. But the reason for the link between Alzheimer’s and circadian dysfunction is not well understood.
People with severe Parkinson’s disease or other neurological conditions that cause intractable symptoms such as uncontrollable shaking, muscle spasms, seizures, obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors are sometimes treated with electric stimulators placed inside the brain. Such stimulators are designed to interrupt aberrant signaling that causes the debilitating symptoms. The therapy, deep-brain stimulation, can provide relief […]
A team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has been funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to study the root causes of neurodegenerative disorders.
A woman with a rare variant of APOE and familial Alzheimer’s disease (AD) had delayed development of AD by nearly 30 years. Independent researchers said the report is changing the thinking and focus of research about the biology of APOE in AD.
Microglia are the driving force of neurodegeneration in a tauopathy mouse model, a new animal study found. The authors of the report suggest microglia may be an effective therapeutic target for preventing disease progression in the setting of tauopathy.
A major international Alzheimer’s disease research initiative will open five new sites in Latin America to help researchers understand the development of early-onset Alzheimer’s in Latino populations.
CHICAGO — A better understanding of the metabolic processes in the brain — specifically disturbances resulting from neurodegenerative diseases — has important implications for potential treatments. The research was presented at Neuroscience 2019, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.
After some costly and disappointing drug trial failures, the field welcomes a funding surge, tools for tracking disease, and interdisciplinary collaborations to tackle one of science’s most stubborn puzzles. In the last five years, as several large clinical trials testing drugs for Alzheimer’s disease failed, the field came to a stark conclusion: These approaches did […]
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received a $15 million gift from Paula and Rodger Riney aimed at accelerating research and developing new treatments for two major neurodegenerative diseases: Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Of the gift, $10 million will support Alzheimer’s disease research, while $5 million will support studies of Parkinson’s […]
Brains do a lot of work while we sleep—far from being a passive behavior, sleep is actually critical to brain health, and as a result, mental and cognitive health. A few new studies in recent weeks underline how important sleep is, and how detrimental lack of sleep can be. And not just chronic lack of […]