Do you associate technology with youth? Picture this woman doing an automated telephone assessment and think again. Modern gadgets stand poised to transform dementia research and care. Researchers are harnessing the power of computers, digital cameras, an
U.S. guidelines for assessing Alzheimer's disease (AD) neuropathology are getting a much-needed facelift. The existing ones, in place since 1997, had fallen out of step with the current understanding of AD as a disease with a long preclinical stage.
The European Union is banking on big returns from nanotechnology in the fight against AD. European Union Throws Megabucks at Nanomedicine EU Consortium Applies Nanotechnology to Study AD
If you listen to National Public Radio, watch TV, or surf the Web, chances are you have come across commercials enticing you to “improve your memory” and “unlock your inner genius” with “brain training developed by neuroscientists.” In search of solid ev
As populations age worldwide and the number of people with dementia is set to soar over the next few decades, a crisis in eldercare looms. At the same time, the use of personal technology—smartphones, tablets, wearable monitors—is exploding. Can technolog
Did you know that if you had a spinal tap for a cerebrospinal fluid-based Alzheimer's diagnosis in Boston, Stockholm, London, or San Diego, the readout would likely be different in each place? And different again this year and next? That's a pro
For families with autosomal-dominant neurological conditions, the fear of passing on the disease to their children looms large. Now, people at this highest genetic risk can ensure that they have healthy children by undergoing in vitro fertilization follow
Have neuroscientists entered the era of the programmable brain? Thanks to optogenetics and pharmacogenetics, which let scientists switch neuronal activity on or off with light or designer drugs, scientists can now control specific subtypes of neurons in r
Alzforum readers might be forgiven for thinking all microglia do is act prominently, if mysteriously, in Alzheimer's pathogenesis. Not so. A recent flurry of papers shows that microglia can match themselves specifically to GABA synapses. They can rev
In this series, ARF takes stock of deep-brain stimulation after more than a decade of life-altering procedures, In deep brain stimulation, surgeons implant wires into the brain and hook them up to a pacemaker-like stimulator implanted in the chest, which
A contentious hypothesis about where and how Parkinson’s disease starts off is gaining ground as new studies provide clues in its support. Neuroanatomists Heiko Braak and Kelly Del Tredici, both at the University of Ulm in Germany, have described the dist
The endocytic receptor SORL1 has come to fruition both literally and figuratively. An interactive diagram of the 2,214 amino acid behemoth—filled with findings about hundreds of rare variants—is live for viewing on the Alzforum Mutations database. A handf
Banked brain tissue enables crucial advances in the understanding and treatment of degenerative disorders. As appreciation of the many different variants of neurodegenerative disease is growing, well-preserved tissue is in more demand than ever. Are the b