While the FDA weighs aducanumab’s marketing license application, Alzheimer’s researchers agree that the agency’s own statistician correctly assessed the data as weak. Most prefer that one more trial be done.
Overexpressing the endosomal activator in neurons not only caused those organelles to swell, but also bungled synaptic transmission, goaded hyperphosphorylation of tau, and destroyed cholinergic neurons.
The brain shrinkage due to verubecestat emerged quickly but did not worsen or cause neurodegeneration. Curiously, both verubecestat and lanabecestat dulled episodic memory and boosted verbal fluency.
In mice lacking the recycling protein GGA3, BACE1 trafficking stalls, local Aβ production increases, and axons swell. Does this explain the neuritic dystrophies seen in early AD?
Quantifying 95 post-translational modifications of tau extracted from AD and control brains, a proteomics study proposes a “processive” model of phosphorylation, ubiquitination, acetylation that drive aggregation and map to distinct stages of disease.
Regulators in the U.S. and Europe have certified a mass-spectrometry-based blood test for amyloid-β. Plasma phospho-tau markers are poised to come next.
The enzyme degrades anti-inflammatory fatty acids in the brain. Blocking it with a brain-penetrant small molecule calmed A1 astrocytes, synapse-eating microglia, and improved amyloidosis and cognition in a mouse model.