Category Research News (General)

Scientists studying two genes that are mutated in an early-onset form of Parkinson’s disease have deciphered how normal versions of these genes collaborate to help rid cells of damaged mitochondria. Mitochondria are the cell’s primary energy source, and maintaining their…

Just three months after a paper outed a gene for a mitochondrial protein as a potential cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-frontotemporal dementia, four new publications have made the case clear. CHCHD10 is an ALS/FTD spectrum gene. A handful of different mutations…

The Walk On Project (WOP) has the aim of publicizing, raising awareness, and assisting in the research of “rare” neurodegenerative diseases. The 2014 WOP Call for research proposals has been extended and is now open until 20th October, 2014. The…

The ALzheimer’s COoperative Valuation in Europe (ALCOVE) project was a Joint Action co-financed by the European Commission to produce a set of evidence-based recommendations for policymakers on dementia. A recent article published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry reports…

A multi-disciplinary research team led by Prof. H.Y. Edwin Chan of the School of Life Sciences at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) has identified a novel genetic mutation that leads to spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA). The work has been…

Trinity College Dublin in Ireland played host to the launch event for a new campaign called “Hello Brain” on 22nd of September, 2014 Hello Brain is a campaign that promotes brain health through easy-to-understand scientific information. A website containing entertaining short…

The second in a series of four Global Dementia Legacy events took place on 11 and 12 September in the Canadian capital, Ottawa. The 200 delegates included experts from the research and industry sectors, health charities, patients, caregivers and government…

Twins who came to an ALS Clinic in Toronto were identical down to the repeats in their C9ORF72 genes, except one had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and the other did not. The mismatch suggests environmental influences modified the twins’ risk for…

Pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly and Co (Lilly) announced on 16 September having reached an agreement to jointly develop and commercialise AZD3293, an oral BACE inhibitor currently in development as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In Phase…

On 17 September, Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) released its annual World Alzheimer Report, this year on the topic of “Dementia and Risk Reduction: An analysis of protective and modifiable factors”. With predictions of a coming global avalanche of dementia cases,…

The Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award is one of the most important medical awards and goes this year to Alim Benabid, Grenoble, France and Mahlong R. Delong, Atlanta, USA for the ‘development of deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus…

The World Dementia Council has announced the next steps in its drive to speed up dementia research and increase investment. The plans were agreed at its second meeting at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris in July.…

New research published in JAMA Neurology suggests that the risk of complications associated with deep brain stimulation (DBS) do not increase with age in people with Parkinson’s. This research based at Duke University Durham, North Carolina was funded by the…

The Dementia Friendly Communities programme, run by the Alzheimer’s Society UK, focuses on improving inclusion and quality of life for people with dementia. The programme’s five year strategy includes a key ambition to work with people affected by dementia and…

The stress of caring for a family member with dementia may take a toll on health over time, but a new study suggests that even one day off can shift caregivers’ stress levels back toward normal. Based on measurements of…

Epigenetic modifications control gene expression, but scientists still don’t know if or how they contribute to disease. To address this knowledge gap, the National Institutes of Health launched the Roadmap Epigenomics Project in 2008 to compare epigenomes in healthy and…

In the lead up to the publication of the Irish Dementia Strategy (due in Autumn 2014), Atlantic Philanthropies have announced new grants totaling €14.7 million to improve the care and wellbeing of people suffering with dementia in the Republic of…

  The mis-folded and infectious prion protein that is a marker for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease – linked to the consumption of infected cattle meat – has been detected in the urine of patients with the disease by researchers at The…

Nutritional shortcomings are a key driver of age-related decline and disability whereas proper diet can increase years of healthy life. In support of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, Joint Research Centre (JRC) scientists have reviewed the…

The 2CARE study of coenzyme Q for Huntington’s disease was halted early because an analysis of the results to date showed that it was very unlikely to show positive results. The study, called 2CARE, was designed to test whether a treatment…

The Austrian biotech AFFiRiS AG announced positive results of its Phase I safety trial of a vaccine against alpha-synuclein. Alpha-synuclein is the sticky protein that clumps in the cells of people with Parkinson’s, and AFFiRiS hopes to stop disease by…

The priorities of the Italian EU Presidency were recently published under the title “Europe: a Fresh Start”. For health-related priorities, special importance is being dedicated to the prevention of respiratory diseases, cancer, HIV and consideration of vaccines as an effective tool for…

An article published in the journal Nature Medicine describes that tau protein isoforms of subjects with Huntington’s disease are similar to those produced in known tauopathies (frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal degeneration) This results in an imbalance in…

Gardens in care homes could be crucial in helping to stimulate memories for dementia patients, scientists have found. A Systematic Review of Quantitative and Qualitative Evidence entitled “What Is the Impact of Using Outdoor Spaces Such as Gardens on the…

Researchers from the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix introduced Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation as their partner in the upcoming Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative ApoE4 trial. Banner will work with the Swiss pharmaceutical company to test experimental therapies in people who carry two…

One in three cases of Alzheimer’s disease worldwide is preventable, according to research from the University of Cambridge. The main risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease are a lack of exercise, smoking, depression and poor education, the study says.  Previous research from 2011 put…

A recent Cochrane Review update was published to assess the clinical efficacy and safety of statins in treating Alzheimer’s Disease and Vascular Dementia. “Statins for the treatment of dementia” is an update of a Cochrane Review originally published in 2010. …

A recent paper addresses the challenges and explores opportunities to stimulate repurposing of FDA-approved drugs for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and related diseases. A new peer-reviewed publication from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) and The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s…

The first follow-up conference to last December’s G8 Summit on Dementia took place recently in London to encourage leading nations to follow the commitments made in 2013. The Global Dementia Legacy Event on Finance and Social Investment was held in…

A new study suggests there could be a way to harness the brain’s capacity to self-repair and make new brain cells and perhaps preserve brain function in neurodegenerative diseases. In Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob and other brain-wasting prion diseases, cells…

A new report from Alzheimer’s Research UK, featuring analysis from Office of Health Economics (OHE), has modelled the impact of new treatments for dementia were they to be introduced in the UK from 2020. The report entitled "Defeat Dementia: The…

A nationwide study in Sweden of 19,743 dementia patients in the Swedish Dementia Registry found that cardiovascular medication is used extensively across dementia disorders and particularly in vascular and mixed dementia. Several cardiovascular disorders have been suggested as risk factors…

Writing in the June 12 PLOS Pathogens, researchers led by Olivier Andréoletti at the National Veterinary School of Toulouse, France, report a technique to detect tiny amounts of toxic prions in blood. The researchers hope such a test will be…

The brain-training company Lumosity has opened its gaming database to researchers as part of what it calls the Human Cognition Project. The database contains records of every mouse click from the 1.5 billion game sessions logged by the company’s 60…

A team of researchers has demonstrated that immunotherapy with specifically targeted antibodies may block the development and spread of Parkinsons pathology in the brain. Using powerful, newly developed cell culture and mouse models of sporadic Parkinson’s disease (PD), researchers intercepted…

Researchers are not sure why spontaneous and unexplained disturbance in REM sleep should lead to a neurodegenerative disease like Parkinson’s Presenting their research at the US Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging’s 2014 Annual Meeting, new longitudinal imaging data…

Researchers have found that depression leads to the increase of a naturally occurring protein in the brain (beta-amyloid) – a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. Most of the aging population develops depression and this could be a major risk factor of…

A recent Lancet article assessed the impact of the French Alzheimer Plan (2008-2012). Government funding and coordination was provided by the Ministry of Health, the Alzheimer Foundation Plan and the French National Research Agency. A bibliometric analysis, summarised in this…

The first edition of the World Dementia Council Newsletter, available in six languages, has been published. The World Dementia Council have also published their Statement of Purpose, explaining the council’s aims and how they intend these to be achieved. The…

A novel experiment to study the Huntingtin protein recently arrived at its orbital laboratory on the International Space Station along with 5,000 lbs of cargo delivered on board SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. When mutated, the huntingtin protein causes Huntington’s disease, a…

A scientific team led by the Gladstone Institutes and UC San Francisco has discovered that a common form of a gene already associated with long life also improves learning and memory, a finding that could have implications for treating age-related…

Conditions which may accelerate the spread of Parkinson’s disease, and a potential means of enhancing naturally-occurring defences against neurodegenerative disorders, have been identified in two new studies. Both sets of results have emerged from collaborations between the research groups led…

French research into the impact of a premature menopause (less than 40 years old) on cognitive function in later life indicates that premature surgical menopause and premature ovarian failure are associated with long-term negative effects on cognitive function. These effects…

The three Dementia Challenge Champion Groups have written brief reports detailing their progress during the past year. These reports feature in a letter to the UK Prime Minister which also reiterates achievements since the Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge was launched…

A glucagon-like peptide-1 agonist (GLP-1 agonist) medication, Exenatide, marketed as Byetta® and Bydureon® is used in the treatment of insulin resistance in patients with Type 2 diabetes. Several recent discoveries have highlighted common cellular pathways that potentially relate neurodegenerative processes…

Are patients with Parkinson’s disease “blind to blindsight?” That’s not a trick question, but the focus of an inquiry by neuroscientists from Rush University Medical Center as well as the Centre Hospitalier and University of Luxembourg. Scientists have developed the…

A recent study conducted by researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Florida examines the discovery of an atypical type of Alzhiemer’s–one that neuroscientists claim is not well recognized nor appropriately treated. The variant, called hippocampal sparing AD, made up 11…

According to the results of the EU FP7-funded REPLACES project (completed 2013), the pattern of brain alterations may be similar in several different neurodegenerative diseases, which may lead to alternative therapeutic strategies to treat these diseases. The project sheds light…

Researchers from the Institute of Neuroscience at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona claim to have reversed memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease mouse models, using gene therapy. The team of researchers discovered the cellular mechanism involved in memory consolidation and were…

A new line of mice promises to circumvent many of the problems of existing models by recapitulating much of the pathology seen in presymptomatic Alzheimer’s, without overexpressing APP or interrupting other mouse genes. Over the last two decades, researchers have…