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A somewhat hectic schedule might protect a person from cognitive decline, a study from the University of Texas at Dallas reported. Busy people had better processing speed, working memory, episodic memory, and reasoning and language skills independent of age and education, indicating that a busy lifestyle might boost neuronal connections. Busy lifestyles — a…

Brazilian researchers have developed a nanoscale biosensor that can detect molecules linked to Alzheimer’s, as well as other neurodegenerative diseases, and certain cancers. The system marks a new era where highly sensitive, inexpensive, and portable devices might become accessible by healthcare professionals, and in settings without access to traditional resources. The sensor,…

Loss of the Y chromosome in blood cells puts men at the same risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease as individuals carrying familial high-risk mutations, offering a new marker for assessing disease risk, also including other age-related diseases, such as cancer. Partial loss of the Y chromosome over time, present in…

Boulder, Colorado-based Accera has completed enrollment for its Phase 3 NOURISH AD clinical trial of AC-1204 for the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Top-line data should be reported later this year. AC-1204 is an orally administered therapy with the potential to improve dementia patients’ cognition and…

Researchers at the University of East Anglia, U.K., developed a clever way to study one of the main processes that breaks down in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients — spatial memory. Through people using Sea Hero Quest, a game that can be played on mobile devices worldwide, scientists can study how spatial navigation…

The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) and the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD) have announced a partnership to find a drug to cure or slow the progression of neurodegenerative diseases caused by the degeneration of neurons. The Lauder Foundation and the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation will each invest $5 million for the development…

Researchers have found an association between fitness and blood flow to areas of the brain where the hallmark tangles and plaques of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are typically detected. The study, “Cardiorespiratory fitness modifies the relationship between myocardial function and cerebral blood flow in older adults,” was published in the journal…

Chronic activation of the innate immune system is the main cause of a range of symptoms common to different neurodegenerative diseases, namely dementia, which is often associated with Alzheimer’s disease, researchers at the University of Adelaide reported. Their study, titled “The Enemy within: Innate Surveillance-Mediated Cell Death, the Common Mechanism…

Researchers at Osaka University, Japan, have found a new way to speed up the accumulation of amyloid-beta protien in a laboratory setting to better study the aggregation mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease. Because amyloid-beta aggregation characteristics are thought to be a marker of disease, researchers suggest the new method might…

Increased activity of mutant forms of a specific enzyme, protein kinase Cα (PKCα), correlates with damage to neurons caused by the amyloid-beta protein in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, researchers from the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School reported. The findings also suggest that drugs inhibiting the…