News

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee  has forwarded a draft bill that could deliver nearly $1.4 billion in federal funds to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) research in 2017. In all health concerns related to the proposed bi-partisan bill, lawmakers recommend $34 billion – a $2 billion increase over fiscal year 2016 – to the…

Recent research published in The Lancet Neurology demonstrates that blood vessel changes such as arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis in the brain are linked to Alzheimer’s disease. The findings suggest that investigating the mechanisms behind how blood vessel disease might contribute to the development of dementia might enable the…

Toronto researchers have examined the driving ability in people with cognitive impairments, including those with Alzheimer’s disease. The recent report, “A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of On-Road Simulator and Cognitive Driving Assessment in Alzheimer’s Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment,” appeared in the Journal of…

Swedish researchers demonstrated that a heart medication can reduce the build-up of plaque in brain blood vessels in mice. If findings in this animal study hold true for humans, scientists may be closer to developing a drug against Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The study, “Platelets contribute to amyloid-β aggregation in cerebral…

Recent hopeful statements that blood levels of progranulin might be a biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia came to an abrupt stop when a recent study demonstrated that there is no link between the blood and cerebrospinal fluid levels of the substance, disrupting the idea of a progranulin…

Researchers at the Maastricht University Medical Center have investigated how the permeability of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is involved in early forms of Alzheimer disease. The findings suggest that a faulty BBB may be involved in the initial pathologic process that eventually results in neurodegeneration and dementia in these patients. Researchers…

The Alzheimer’s Association will use Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month to debunk myths related to  the disease, while raising awareness about some truths – including being open about how fatal the disease really is: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S. and the only one among…

A new study led by biomedical scientists at Indiana University has revealed evidence that the NMNAT2 enzyme may be protective against the debilitating effects of certain degenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s Disease. The study, “NMNAT2:HSP90 Complex Mediates Proteostasis in Proteinopathies,” was published in the journal…

Alzheimer’s disease research and drug development has for the last several decades focused feircly on the elimination of amyloid-β — the protein that aggregates forming plaques in brain neurons of patients. Now, a new study suggests that the protein is part of the immune system, having an evolutionary important antimicrobial role…

Professor Gunhild Waldemar, director of the Danish Dementia Research Center (DDRC), was a guest speaker at the recent Second Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) in Copenhagen, and she encouraged researchers to work together to develop standardized guidelines for early diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). She reinforced the notion that…