PAPER Mioshi E, Foxe D, Leslie F, McLinneuro SS, Hsieh S, Miller L, Hodges JR, Piguet O

The Impact of Dementia Severity on Caregiver Burden in Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer Disease.

Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord. 2012 Feb 6; PubMed: 22314247

PAPER De Strooper B, Iwatsubo T, Wolfe MS

Presenilins and γ-Secretase: Structure, Function, and Role in Alzheimer Disease.

Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2012 Jan;2(1):a006304. PubMed: 22315713

PAPER Wyss-Coray T, Rogers J

Inflammation in Alzheimer disease-a brief review of the basic science and clinical literature.

Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2012 Jan;2(1):a006346. PubMed: 22315714

PAPER Selkoe D, Mandelkow E, Holtzman D

Deciphering Alzheimer disease.

Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2012 Jan;2(1):a011460. PubMed: 22315723

PAPER Hur EM, Zhou FQ

GSK3 signalling in neural development.

Nat Rev Neurosci. 2010 Aug;11(8):539-51. PubMed: 20648061

Jürgen Götz on Using intramolecular disulfide bonds in tau protein to deduce structural features of aggregation-resistant conformations.

COMMENT This is an interesting paper. However, 3R-tau, which has only one cysteine, is not mentioned at all, and in AD, both 4R and 3R tau form aggregates. It might be interesting in subsequent studies to include a 3R truncated form similar to the K18 construct.

Juan Domingo Gispert

Fundació Pasqual Maragall
Barcelona, Spain

Paper Alert: γ-Secretase Modulators Trump Inhibitors

RESEARCH NEWS 2012-02-09 Research News A paper in the February 8 Journal of Neuroscience reports that γ-secretase inhibitors do nothing to improve memory in AD mice when given subchronically, and can even worsen cognition in normal mice. By contrast, under the same conditions a γ

Beyond Aβ: Other APP Fragments Affect Neuron Health and Disease

RESEARCH NEWS 2012-02-09 Research News In Alzheimer’s research, Aβ usually hogs the attention from its parent protein, amyloid precursor protein (APP). Yet evidence is accumulating that other APP fragments, particularly those produced by β-secretase (BACE1) cleavage, such as β-CT

Bob Bisantz

FMR
Raleigh, United States

Maxime Derisbourg

�Max Planck Institute
Coogne, Germany

PAPER Ozelius LJ, Senthil G, Saunders-Pullman R, Ohmann E, Deligtisch A, Tagliati M, Hunt AL, Klein C, Henick B, Hailpern SM, Lipton RB, Soto-Valencia J, Risch N, Bressman SB

LRRK2 G2019S as a cause of Parkinson's disease in Ashkenazi Jews.

N Engl J Med. 2006 Jan 26;354(4):424-5. PubMed: 16436782

More Than a LRRK: PD Field Thinks Big With Genetic Cohort

COMMUNITY NEWS 2012-02-08 Community News Although some Parkinson’s medications ease symptoms, none stop the disease in its tracks. Researchers hope to get closer to the goal of disease-modifying treatment by studying people who carry PD risk mutations in the LRRK2 gene. By assembl

Not the Usual Suspects: Tracking BACE Inhibition, Axon Role

RESEARCH NEWS 2012-02-08 Research News BACE1 has been a tough nut to crack. This β-secretase enzyme starts the process of cleaving APP into neurotoxic Aβ, making it an attractive target for Alzheimer’s disease therapeutics, and yet companies have struggled for 10 years to develop

PAPER Byrne S, Elamin M, Bede P, Shatunov A, Walsh C, Corr B, Heverin M, Jordan N, Kenna K, Lynch C, McLaughlin RL, Iyer PM, O'Brien C, Phukan J, Wynne B, Bokde AL, Bradley DG, Pender N, Al-Chalabi A, Hardiman O

Cognitive and clinical characteristics of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis carrying a C9orf72 repeat expansion: a population-based cohort study.

Lancet Neurol. 2012 Mar;11(3):232-40. PubMed: 22305801