Alzheimer’s Group Resources

The biggest loser: Maternal obesity puts a load on her offspring that lasts a lifetime

(Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) As if there are not enough reasons for obese people to lose weight, a research report recently published online in The FASEB Journal, adds several more. In a study involving rats, Duke University researchers found that obesity in mothers causes cellular programming in utero that predisposes offspring to inflammation-related disorders (such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease and more) from birth, regardless of whether or not the offspring are obese themselves. (Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health)

Neuroimaging study may pave way for effective Alzheimer’s treatments

(University of California - San Francisco) Scientists have determined that a new instrument known as PIB-PET is effective in detecting deposits of amyloid-beta protein plaques in the brains of living people, and that these deposits are predictive of who will develop Alzheimer's disease. (Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health)

Memory lapses are common and increase with age; when do they signal Alzheimer’s?

Where did I park my car? What is that lady's name? Where are my glasses? Some call these "senior moments" or "tip-of-the-tongue" experiences. They're mundane for many elderly (and not-so-elderly) adults, but when do they become something more serious? How does one know when it's time to get scree... (Source: Wash Post Health)

Randomised trial of latrepirdine in Huntington Disease

In this study, a total of 91 patients with mild to moderate HD were randomised to double-blind treatment with latrepirdine (20mg TDS; n=46) or placebo (n=45) for 90 days.  The primary outcome was tolerability (ability to complete ... (Source: NeLM - News)

Amyloid oligomers: formation and toxicity of Aβ oligomers

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an age-related, progressive degenerative disorder that is characterized by synapse and neuron loss in the brain and the accumulation of protein-containing deposits (referred to as 'senile plaques') and neurofibrillary tangles. Insoluble amyloid [beta]-peptide (A[beta]) fibrillar aggregates found in extracellular plaques have long been thought to cause the neurodegenerative cascades of AD. However, accumulating evidence suggests that prefibrillar soluble A[beta] oligomers induce AD-related synaptic dysfunction. The size of A[beta] oligomers is distributed over a wide molecular weight range (from < 10 kDa to > 100 kDa), with structural polymorphism in A[beta] oligomers of similar sizes. Recent studies have demonstrated that A[beta] can accumulate in living cells, ...

Neuroimaging Study May Pave Way for Effective Alzheimer’s Treatments

Scientists have determined that a new instrument known as PIB-PET is effective in detecting deposits of amyloid-beta protein plaques in the brains of living people, and that these deposits are predictive of who will develop Alzheimer's disease. (Source: UCSF Medical Center)

Alzheimer’s drug Dimebon helps Huntington’s: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Dimebon, a pill being developed for Alzheimer's disease, helped people with Huntington's disease improve their thinking, learning and memory skills, U.S. researchers said on Monday. (Source: Reuters: Health)

Alzheimer’s Drug Dimebon Helps Huntington’s

Dimebon, a pill being developed for Alzheimer's disease, helped people with Huntington's disease improve their thinking, learning and memory skills, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Source: Reuters Health Related MedlinePlus Topics: Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease (Source: MedlinePlus Health News)

Gene expression levels as endophenotypes in genome-wide association studies of Alzheimer disease

Conclusions: These results provide strong evidence that IDE is a late-onset Alzheimer disease (LOAD) gene with variants that modify risk of LOAD by influencing IDE expression. They also suggest that the use of expression levels as endophenotypes in genome-wide association studies may provide a powerful approach for the identification of disease susceptibility alleles. (Source: Neurology)

11C-PIB binding is increased in patients with cerebral amyloid angiopathy-related hemorrhage

Conclusion: 11C-Pittsburgh compound B (PIB) binding is moderately increased in most patients with probable cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA)-related intracerebral hemorrhage. The distribution may differ from that seen in Alzheimer disease. 11C-PIB PET may assist in the in vivo diagnosis of CAA and serve as a surrogate marker for future therapeutic studies. (Source: Neurology)