People at risk of Alzheimer’s disease have impaired spatial navigation prior to problems with other cognitive functions, including memory, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The research, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, used virtual reality to test the spatial navigation of 100 asymptomatic midlife adults, aged 43-66, … Read more
UC San Francisco scientists have found a way to predict Alzheimer’s Disease up to seven years before symptoms appear by analyzing patient records with machine learning. The conditions that most influenced prediction of Alzheimer’s were high cholesterol and, for women, the bone-weakening disease osteoporosis. The work demonstrates the promise of using artificial intelligence (AI) to … Read more
People with higher exposure to traffic-related air pollution were more likely to have high amounts of amyloid plaques in their brains associated with Alzheimer’s disease after death, according to a study published in the February 21, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers looked at fine particulate … Read more
UNC School of Medicine researcher Sarah Cohen, PhD, and Ian Windham, a former PhD student from the Cohen lab, have made a new discovery about apolipoprotein E (APOE) — the biggest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Older people who inherited a genetic variant called APOE4 from their parents have a two- or three-times … Read more
Immigrants living with dementia were more likely to present with agitation and aggression compared with their non-immigrant counterparts, a new study by Edith Cowan University (ECU) in collaboration with The Dementia Centre, HammondCare, found. Researchers from ECU’s Centre for Research in Aged Care and HammondCare’s The Dementia Centre noted that behaviours and psychological symptoms of … Read more
While newly approved drugs for Alzheimer’s show some promise for slowing the memory-robbing disease, the current treatments fall far short of being effective at regaining memory. What is needed are more treatment options targeted to restore memory, said Buck Assistant Professor Tara Tracy, PhD, the senior author of a study that proposes an alternate strategy … Read more
You might think age-related dementia has been with us all along, stretching back to the ancient world. But a new analysis of classical Greek and Roman medical texts suggests that severe memory loss — occurring at epidemic levels today — was extremely rare 2,000 to 2,500 years ago, in the time of Aristotle, Galen and … Read more
Nerve cells in the brain demand an enormous amount of energy to survive and maintain their connections for communicating with other nerve cells. In Alzheimer’s disease, the ability to make energy is compromised, and the connections between nerve cells (called synapses) eventually come apart and wither, causing new memories to fade and fail. A Scripps … Read more
Five cases of Alzheimer’s disease are believed to have arisen as a result of medical treatments decades earlier, reports a team of UCL and UCLH researchers. Alzheimer’s disease is caused by the amyloid-beta protein, and is usually a sporadic condition of late adult life, or more rarely an inherited condition that occurs due to a … Read more
About 55 million people worldwide are living with dementia, according to the World Health Organization. The most common form is Alzheimer’s disease, an incurable condition that causes brain function to deteriorate. In addition to its physical effects, Alzheimer’s causes psychological, social and economic ramifications not only for the people living with the disease, but also … Read more
