RESEARCH NEWS 2015-09-18 Research News Optical clearing renders tissue transparent, exposing cellular components to the gaze of light microscopists. Unfortunately, the mishmash of reagents used to clarify the tissue can also warp its shape or alter the chemistry of the molecules
RESEARCH NEWS 2015-09-21 Research News Studying an animal model of frontotemporal dementia (FTD), researchers have discovered a big neon sign pointing to lysosomal dysfunction—autofluorescent aggregates. The finding, reported in the September 10 Acta Neuropathologica online, agai
RESEARCH NEWS 2015-09-22 Research News In today’s JAMA Neurology, researchers led by Jeffrey Cummings at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas formally published the results of a 10-week Phase 2 trial of Avanir Pharmaceuticals’ AVP-923 to treat agita
RESEARCH NEWS 2015-10-01 Research News Once upon a time, sequencing a single genome was something to brag about. Those days are gone. In the October 1 Nature, a consortium of researchers publishes its final report on the 1000 Genomes Project. The consortium sequenced the full gen
RESEARCH NEWS 2015-10-01 Research News Just as the failure of avagacestat in 2012 was fading into the realm of sour memories, researchers have revived it with a detailed data analysis. The drug’s last trial, a Phase 2, aimed to test this γ-secretase inhibitor in people with prodr
RESEARCH NEWS 2015-10-07 Research News Aggregated proteins pose a challenge for the brain’s degradation machinery because these tangled clumps often conceal the cleavage sites necessary for proteolytic digestion. Cells first have to deploy specialized proteins called disaggregase
RESEARCH NEWS 2015-10-08 Research News Two proteins involved in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) precipitate formation of cellular granules by condensing into liquid droplets, according to recent studies. One, called hnRNPA1, forms transient stress granules by a process known
RESEARCH NEWS 2015-10-10 Research News Because brain tissues from living donors are not widely available for study, researchers have devised ways to generate neurons from patient skin cells. One problem with this process—which often involves turning fibroblasts into pluripotent s
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2015-10-20 Conference Coverage This meeting report was contributed to Alzforum by Donna Wilcock, University of Kentucky, Lexington. The International Society of Vascular Behavioral and Cognitive Disorders, aka VasCog, held its annual meeting in the beautiful city of
RESEARCH NEWS 2015-10-23 Research News Aβ42 in the cerebrospinal fluid has become widely accepted as an early marker flagging a person’s path toward Alzheimer’s disease. Yet this obstreperous peptide has bedeviled researchers by posting variable measurement results on all levels—
RESEARCH NEWS 2015-10-29 Research News Behind every successful neuron, there is a support crew of glia. Stem cell researchers are aiming to replace both types of cell in an effort to slow neurodegenerative disease. Two studies published October 13 in Stem Cell Reports described s
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2015-10-29 Conference Coverage Over the past several years, much research has pointed to cellular mishandling of RNA as a key factor in neurodegeneration. Numerous RNA-binding proteins—from the well-known TDP-43 and fragile X mental retardation proteins to relative
RESEARCH NEWS 2015-10-29 Research News The toxic activity of FUS, a protein linked to both amyotrophic sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia, may come down to a question of liquids versus solids. Today in Neuron, researchers led by Peter St. George-Hyslop of the University of Cam
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2015-10-29 Conference Coverage At around 29,000 registrants, this year’s Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, held October 17-21 in Chicago, was slightly smaller than those of years past. More noticeably for Alzheimer’s researchers, the number of oral and poster
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2015-10-30 Conference Coverage Over the past couple of months, scientists have learned that RNA-binding proteins such as FUS and hnRNPA1 undergo phase transitions, separating themselves and their associated nucleic acids and protein partners into liquid-phase-like o