RESEARCH NEWS 2019-08-16 Research News ApoE4 predisposes people to Alzheimer’s disease by modulating astrocytes and microglia, suggest researchers led by Julia TCW and Alison Goate at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. In a preprint on bioRχiv, the researchers
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-08-15 Research News Variants in the MS4A gene cluster influence AD risk, at least in part, by tweaking levels of another AD risk factor, TREM2. In a study published in Science Translational Medicine on August 14, researchers co-led by Bruno Benitez, Celeste Kar
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2019-08-15 Conference Coverage At one end of the Alzheimer’s disease genetic spectrum lie the catastrophic mutations in APP and presenilin that lead to autosomal-dominant, early onset AD. At the other end are dozens of common variants that each contribute a smidgen
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-08-09 Research News People who sustain repeated head injuries are at risk for developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) many years later, but what causes the clinical symptoms of the disease? At least three kinds of neuropathology, according to a paper
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-08-09 Research News Geneticists have found dozens of loci that associate with Alzheimer’s disease, but the functional variants and even the genes that underlie these associations often remain elusive. Now, researchers led by Alison Goate and Edoardo Marcora at
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-08-09 Research News Soluble Aβ sends neurons into a hyperactive frenzy, but scientists don’t know why. New evidence suggests that the peptide causes the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate to build up in synapses, making neurons hyperactive. In the August 9 S
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2019-08-08 Conference Coverage Mention ApoE and Alzheimer’s, and the conversation turns to the E4 allele, the strongest susceptibility gene for the disease. But ApoE has another side, in ApoE2. Though this isoform protects against AD, scientists have barely studied
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2019-08-08 Conference Coverage At the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, held July 14–18 in Los Angeles, a blood test indicating that neurons in the brain are degenerating generated considerable buzz. Eric Reiman, Banner Alzheimer’s Institute, Phoenix
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2019-08-08 Conference Coverage A subset of the world’s largest known kindred of autosomal-dominant Alzheimer’s disease, near the Colombian city of Medellin, have enrolled in the Banner Alzheimer Prevention Initiative Autosomal Dominant Alzheimer’s Disease trial. It
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2019-08-02 Conference Coverage At the fifth annual DIAD family meeting held July 13 in Los Angeles, Randall Bateman of Washington University, St. Louis, stood before an audience of laypeople who had come from around the world to hear the latest about the grand proje
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2019-08-02 Conference Coverage When participants in the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer’s Network (DIAN) met in Los Angeles on July 13, they heard from their at-risk fellow travelers (see Part 1 of this series), learned how their tissue donations continue to advance
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2019-08-02 Conference Coverage Each year, the DIAD family conference held in advance of the Alzheimer's Association International Conference features a science update, and this year the focus was on genetics. DIAN families know that the modern era of Alzheimer’
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2019-08-02 Conference Coverage “One day you will tell your story of how you’ve overcome what you are going through now, and it will become part of someone else’s survival guide.” Luciana, 29, DIAN participant. “The disease might lie inside us, but so does the cure.”
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-08-02 Research News A study that followed more than 12,000 people for over 12 years adds significant weight to the idea that hemoglobin level is an important risk factor for Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Scientists led by M. Arfan Ikram at Erasmus Medical Ce