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
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-16 Research News The scientist who helped discover one of the few drugs currently approved for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease has received the $100,000 Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Award for 2003. Marta Weinstock and colleagues at the Hebrew Un
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-13 Research News Hope that thiazolidinedione agonists of PPARγ (Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor-γ) will prove beneficial for Alzheimer's patients (see ARF recent live discussion) may be tempered slightly by a report in this week's Mayo C
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2003-09-08 Conference Coverage Overview The first day of Enabling Technologies 2003 focused on the natural history of Alzheimer's disease, fundamental cell biology, and mechanisms of neurodegeneration. On the second day, workshop participants reviewed the curre
CONFERENCE COVERAGE 2003-09-08 Conference Coverage 1. Conduct mechanistic studies to determine what Ab oligomers do in the synaptic cleft: how do they affect calcium metabolism and synapse function when applied from outside to normal slices of brain tissue or when the oligomers are pro
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-08 Research News The risk of developing bipolar disorder appears to increase in people who carry a particular polymorphism of a transcription factor that aids in the clearance of "junk" protein from the endoplasmic reticulum. In the online edition
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-06 Research News Subtle changes in synaptic transmission are likely responsible for learning and memory, but the molecular cast of characters at play in this complex process is only partly known. Two papers in this week's Nature Neuroscience online intr
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-09-05 Research News Genetic polymorphisms in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC)—a group of proteins that help the immune system distinguish self from non-self—can profoundly influence the immune response mounted against an amyloid β vaccine. That is the
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-08-29 Research News Scientists have long puzzled over the following conundrum: If the activity of a protein solution drops by half, have half the molecules completely lost activity, or have all the proteins lost half their activity? The answer, most likely, is
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-08-29 Research News Presenilin, the enzyme that proteolytically cleaves amyloid-β precursor protein (APP) and Notch, also processes the p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR), reveals Tae-Wan Kim and colleagues at Columbia University, New York, and Pohang Universit
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-08-27 Research News Neuritic plaques are classic, obvious markers of Alzheimer’s disease, but it is a puzzle why their density is a poor predictor of disease symptoms. Recently, scientists have come to suspect that soluble oligomeric, not fibrillary, Aβ, may be
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-08-26 Research News If the old saying that elephants never forget is true, then it may be because in mammals, synaptic branches laid down in early life are stable into middle age. That is the conclusion of a study appearing in Nature Neuroscience online last we
RESEARCH NEWS 2003-08-24 Research News In this week's Nature Medicine, researchers reveal that glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a product of proglucagon processing, may have an important role in learning and neuroprotection. The peptide, first found in intestinal L cells of