Patricia Inacio, PhD, science writer —

A simple test of amyloid-beta protein levels in a person’s blood may offer a way to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease up to eight years before any clinical symptoms are evident, a study shows. The study, “Amyloid blood biomarker detects Alzheimer’s disease,” was published in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine.

An injection of IONIS-MAPTRx resulted in a 70 percent decrease in tau protein produced in the brains of non-human primates, researchers at  Ionis Pharmaceuticals, the potential treatment’s maker, are reporting. These positive pre-clinical findings helped in the design of a first clinical study, now underway and enrolling, that will…

Long-term exposure to caffeine worsens Alzheimer’s disease symptoms, a new mouse study shows. The study “Long-term Treatment with Low-Dose Caffeine Worsens BPSD-Like Profile in 3xTg-AD Mice Model of Alzheimer’s Disease and Affects Mice with Normal Aging” was published in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology. Alzheimer’s disease is characterized…

Spanish regulators have signed off on Oryzon Genomics’ plan to conduct a Phase 2 clinical trial of its Alzheimer’s therapy ORY-2001. The ETHERAL trial, which will cover patients with mild to moderate forms of the disease, will be the first to assess the effectiveness of an epigenetic therapy for Alzheimer’s. This approach…

The brain works in a coordinated matter, like a tuned orchestra, scientists say. If a single instrument is out of sync, it affects the entire ensemble. In Alzheimer’s disease, damage to certain nerve cells is sufficient to alter brainwave rhythms and cause a loss of cognitive function. A new mouse study shows how…

The harmful tau protein associated with Alzheimer’s appears in one place in the brain, then spreads, rather than showing up in several places independently, new imaging techniques show. This finding suggests that preventing tau from spreading may be a good way of stopping the progression of the disease, a University…

Three Phase 3 clinical studies have failed to reproduce previously reported benefits of adding investigational idalopirdine to a background therapy of cholinesterase inhibitors. The three randomized trials detected no improvements in cognition among mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease patients treated this way. The study, “Effect of Idalopirdine as Adjunct…

The gut microbiome is increasingly seen as a key player in serious and chronic neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s — for reasons that are being suggested and explained, but not quite named. Now, researchers propose a term — “mapranosis” — to capture the process by which amyloid proteins produced…

Salk Institute researchers have discovered how a therapy they are developing alleviates the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and reverses aging in mice. The compound, J147, does this by binding to a protein in mitochondria, the cells’ energy powerhouse, the La…

ProMIS Neurosciences’ Alzheimer’s therapy PMN310 attacks toxic forms of a protein linked to the disease but not normal forms, a preclinical-trial study indicates. Other therapies go after both forms of amyloid beta, giving PMN310 an important safety edge, ProMIS said. The study involved both human brain cells in a lab…