RESEARCH NEWS 2019-11-08 Research News Researchers are searching for ways to dampen harmful inflammation and boost microglial phagocytosis in the Alzheimer’s brain. In the November 4 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by Hee Kyung Jin and Jae-sung Ba
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-11-08 Research News Former professional soccer players are more likely to develop a neurodegenerative disease than the general population, according to a November 7 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers led by William Stewart, University of
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-11-07 Research News Just as the clamor about Biogen’s seeking FDA approval for aducanumab with one positive Phase 3 trial started to die down, a Chinese company garnered a regulatory thumbs-up for its drug, also with one Phase 3 trial. On November 2, Shanghai G
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-11-04 Research News In today’s Nature Medicine, a team of researchers led by Yakeel Quiroz, Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez, Francisco Lopera, and Eric Reiman describe the case of a Colombian woman who inherited the autosomal-dominant E280A mutation in presenilin 1 b
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-11-01 Research News Sleep is profoundly restorative for the brain, partly because it clears solutes and waste products. This flushing works best during the deepest periods of sleep, but why is that? Data from the lab of Laura Lewis, Boston University, suggest t
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-11-01 Research News Does ApoE4 affect aspects of Alzheimer’s disease other than amyloidosis? Animal studies have hinted as much, and now several brain imaging studies seem to agree. In a preprint posted to medRχiv on October 8, researchers led by Mark Bondi at
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-11-01 Research News Bucking conventional, i.e., left-leaning, wisdom for amyloid fibrils, Aβ fibrils extracted from the brains of three people with Alzheimer’s disease all twisted to the right. This is apparent in the first-ever structure of Aβ fibrils isolated
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-10-30 Research News In mice, microglia eat synapses. Does this happen in the human brain, too? New data from the labs of Tara Spires-Jones and Barry McColl, both at the University of Edinburgh, suggests as much. In postmortem samples, the researchers uncovered
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-10-30 Research News Constipation of the vesicular transport system in neurons is a core feature of Parkinson’s disease, and two new studies describe small-molecule approaches to get this cellular digestion pathway moving again. On October 16 in Science Translat
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2019-10-25 Conference Coverage Too much salty food wreaks havoc on the cardiovascular system, raising blood pressure, damaging small blood vessels, and limiting perfusion into the brain. But is this why salt increases the chances of cognitive impairment? Not so fast
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-10-24 Research News On October 22, Biogen stunned the Alzheimer’s field by announcing that aducanumab —presumed dead last March after failing a futility analysis—appears to have worked in one of its two Phase 3 trials, after all. Based on the results of a new a
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-10-24 Research News Changes in personality often become apparent just before dementia arises, but could certain traits in early life associate with dementia risk decades later? Yes, according to a study published October 16 in JAMA Psychiatry. Researchers led b
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-10-23 Research News A multi-institutional group, including members of the Tau Consortium, unveiled a stem cell tool kit for scientists studying primary tauopathies. In the November 12 issue of Stem Cell Reports, researchers co-led by Celeste Karch of Washington
RESEARCH NEWS 2019-10-18 Research News In neurodegenerative diseases, specific brain regions take the brunt of pathology and atrophy. However, differences from one patient to another make it hard to predict the precise path of progression for any one person. Now, scientists led b