Tag Archives: Alzheimer’s

Researchers from the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) blocked a sleep-regulating protein, orexin, in mice with a form of Alzheimer’s disease, making them sleep longer and blocking brain symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. The research appeared in the November 24th issue of The Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Also known as hypocretin, orexin is a molecule that controls wakefulness, as well as eating, motivation, and emotion. Orexin is thought to be important for maintaining regular sleep patterns. People with low orexin can have narcolepsy — a condition associated with sleeping excessively. Levels of orexin in the cerebrospinal fluid have recently been found to be decreased in Alzheimer’s disease, and these decreases correspond abnormal sleep patterns.

Source: Alzheimer’s News Today

Researchers in Oxford, UK have discovered a specific network in the brain that is the first to degenerate with age and also the most vulnerable spot for the development of schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to analyze changes in the brain structures of 484 healthy participants, ages eight to 85 years.

“Our results show that the same specific parts of the brain not only develop more slowly, but also degenerate faster than other parts,” said researcher Dr. Gwenaëlle Douaud, at Oxford University’s Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB).

“These complex regions, which combine information coming from various senses, seem to be more vulnerable than the rest of the brain to both schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s, even though these two diseases have different origins and appear at very different, almost opposite, times of life.”
The researchers used a “data-driven” approach for the study. Instead of looking for a particular pattern of brain change over the lifespan in a specific location of the brain, they analyzed all the imaging data to see what patterns appeared.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/11/29/387989/brains-weak-spot-for-dementia-found/

http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/11/28/vulnerable-brain-spot-tied-to-schizophrenia-alzheimers/77873.html

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 I studies, AZD3293 had been shown to significantly and dose-dependently reduce levels of amyloid beta in the cerebro-spinal fluid of trial participants with Alzheimer’s disease as well as in healthy volunteers. AstraZeneca announced its plan to move AZD3293 into registration trials earlier this year.

This alliance has been formed with the aim of progressing AZD3293 rapidly into a Phase II/III clinical trial in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease.

Lilly will lead clinical development, working with researchers from AstraZeneca’s Innovative Medicines Unit for neuroscience, while AstraZeneca will be responsible for manufacturing. The companies will take joint responsibility for the commercialisation of AZD3293.

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 diseased cells.

In the August 17 Nature Neuroscience, two papers from separate but collaborative research groups report on some of the fruits of that effort. Both groups surveyed DNA methylation in hundreds of human AD and control brains and identified several regions where changes in this epigenetic mark correlated with the amount of Alzheimer’s pathology. The results may help flag genes that are turned up or down in AD, and provide insight into pathogenesis, said Philip De Jager at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, the first author of one of the papers.