Efforts to develop a treatment that stalls the memory-robbing devastation of Alzheimer’s disease have so far been unsuccessful, but scientists are making strides in another important area: the development of better tests to tell who has the condition. Their aim is to develop more accurate, cheaper and less invasive tests to detect the biological markers […]
How well, not how much, people sleep may affect Alzheimer’s disease risk. Healthy adults built up Alzheimer’s-associated proteins in their cerebral spinal fluid when prevented from getting slow-wave sleep, the deepest stage of sleep, researchers report July 10 in Brain. Just one night of deep-sleep disruption was enough to increase the amount of amyloid-beta, a protein that […]
Americans love to drive. More than 75 percent of adults carry a driver’s license, including 40 million who are 65 and older. But driving is more than just a passion or a pastime: It’s a lifeline. Studies show that giving up driving increases a person’s mortality risk and makes seniors more likely to land in […]
Age can bring moments of forgetfulness. It can also bring concern that the forgetfulness might be a sign of early Alzheimer’s disease. For those who decide to have it checked out, doctors are likely to administer brief memory exams to assess the situation, and medical tests to search for causes of memory loss. Brain imaging […]
Damaging tangles of the protein tau dot the brains of people with Alzheimer’s and many other neurodegenerative diseases, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which plagues professional boxers and football players. Such tau-based diseases can lead to memory loss, confusion and, in some, aggressive behavior. But there is no easy way to determine whether people’s symptoms are linked to […]
An international leader in neurofibromatosis research has received a $3.5 million grant to study why people with the same genetic mutation – in this case, a mutation that causes the genetic disorder known as neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) – develop markedly different signs and symptoms.
Feb. 8 (UPI) — Research from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, suggests the potential to prevent or reverse brain damage caused by tau protein in dementia patients. The study of mice and monkeys showed that tau antisense oligonucleotides, which are genetically engineered to block a cell’s production of tau, have the potential to treat […]
In some people, the brain protein tau collects into toxic tangles that damage brain cells and contribute to diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a drug that can lower tau levels and prevent some neurological damage. In neurons that contain the drug (above, in red) […]
Welders are in danger of developing symptoms similar to those of Parkinson’s disease, according to a new study that suggests exposure to fumes containing manganese makes things worse. Welding has been linked in previous research to a higher risk for parkinsonism. The term refers to a group of disorders that causes movement problems that mimic […]
Like many patients visiting a doctor’s office, Kim Sebenoler started out her appointment by heading to the nearest restroom to give a urine sample. But her visit to the lab of John Constantino, MD, director of the William Greenleaf Eliot Division of Child Psychiatry, was not a typical exam. The goal was not to measure […]