RESEARCH NEWS 2003-10-09 Research News Soluble amyloid-β peptides (sAβ), produced by neurons in the CNS, can find their way out of the brain and into the circulation, where peripheral organs clear them from the body. But in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, a portion of the pep
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-10-03 Research News One well-characterized cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is mutation of the copper-zinc isoform of superoxide dismutase (SOD), which can lead to progressive degeneration of motor neurons that results in the debilitating symptoms o
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-10-03 Research News Using time-lapse imaging to follow the path of mutant huntingtin protein from expression through cell death, researchers believe they have laid to rest a much-debated theory of pathogenesis of Huntington's disease. Writing in the PNAS E
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-10-02 Research News Two papers in the 25 September Neuron move axonal transport squarely into the limelight of research on triplet-repeat (or polyQ) diseases, including Huntington’s. One team of scientists, led by Larry Goldstein at the University of California
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-10-01 Research News Gleevec, the cancer "wonder drug" that has proven effective for gastrointestinal stromal tumors might also be useful for Alzheimer's patients, if only one could deliver it to the brain effectively, according to a paper in this
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-29 Research News In the September 21 online Nature Neuroscience, YouMing Lu and colleagues at the University of Calgary, Canada, report that the serine-threonine kinase Cdk5, which is known to phosphorylate the neurofibrillary tangle protein tau, is essentia
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-26 Research News Reporting in this week’s PNAS early online edition, Brian Bacskai and colleagues from Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, and Bill Klunk and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, show that they can image the upta
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-26 Research News A new study adds support to the theory that a critical first step in the production of the Aβ peptide, i.e., the cleavage of amyloid precursor protein (AβPP) by the BACE enzyme, occurs primarily in specialized, cholesterol-rich areas of the
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-26 Research News A novel public-private consortium designed to combat Alzheimer’s disease by supporting the development of new animal models is seeking grant applications from scientists at universities and independent research institutes worldwide. Models d
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-25 Research News The Food and Drug Administration’s advisory committee on peripheral and central nervous system drugs yesterday narrowly recommended that the FDA approve memantine (see ARF Drugs in Clinical Trials) for advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-23 Research News The ratio of phosphorylated tau (p-tau) to β-amyloid (Aβ) in the cerebrospinal fluid improves the ability to distinguish clinically defined Alzheimer's patients from normal subjects, according to a study in the September issue of the Ar
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-23 Research News Acetylcholinesterase (AChE), best known for hydrolyzing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, is also found in the amyloid plaques that plague the brains of Alzheimer's patients. What part this protein has in progression of AD is unclear,
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-19 Research News Two similar studies funded by Eisai and Pfizer companies, the developer and US-promoter of the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor drug donepezil, suggest that their drug, already widely used for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, may also rel
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-17 Research News Could biopsy of olfactory epithelium yield early warnings of Alzheimer's disease (AD)? This possibility was raised by George Perry and colleagues who report in the August 29 online issue of Acta Neuropathologica that oxidative damage to
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-17 Research News Prions, those self-replicating proteins that are responsible for scrapie, mad cow disease, and human neurologic diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob and Kuru, have been notoriously difficult to pin down in the cell. Now, an international colla