Serial measurements on hundreds of people in the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer’s Network put proposed staging diagrams on an empirical footing. CSF markers sTREM2 and VILIP-1 track tau.
At AAIC, updated imaging data in autosomal-dominant AD shows that longitudinal MRI in large numbers of people confirms atrophy patterns. Tau PET is more variable in DIAN participants than in the Colombian families.
Armed with what they consider comprehensive data sets from the DIAN initiative, researchers are beginning a quest to settle an old question that may become key to drug approvals for late-onset AD.
As data pours in, DIAN leaders strive to share and publish it without accidentally disclosing mutation status. The more is learned about preclinical AD, the harder this may get.
While the relationship between Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular problems such as hypertension and diabetes remains complicated, a history of stroke is said to double the risk of late-onset AD.
Increasingly, people must learn of their amyloid status and/or ApoE genotype in order to enter secondary prevention trials. At AAIC, researchers laid out their procedures to ethically break the news.
Parabiosis passes its first test in mouse models of Alzheimer’s, normalizing gene expression and improving memory—though with no reduction in amyloid plaques.