Latest Research News

Alzheimer's gene affects IQ from childhood

Analysis of some old longitudinal studies has found that those carrying the APOE4 gene scored lower on IQ tests during childhood and adolescence. The effect was much stronger in girls than in boys, and affected reasoning most strongly.

IQ scores were lower by 1.91 points for each APOE4 allele carried. But boys scored only an average of 0.33 points lower, while girls scored almost 3 points lower for each APOE4 allele.

Almost all the participants (92%) were white.

Data from a ten-year study involving 345 Alzheimer's patients has found that cholinesterase inhibitors work better with those who don't have the gene CHRFAM7A.

Poor sleep has been associated with the development of Alzheimer's disease, and this has been thought to be in part because the protein amyloid beta increases with sleep deprivation. A new study explains more.

Experiments with mice show that sleep deprivation also rapidly increases levels of the other key Alzheimer’s disease protein, tau tangles.

The work built on findings that tau is high in older people who sleep poorly, and that, when people are kept awake all night, their tau levels rise by about 50%.

A small study has found that a 12-week exercise program significantly improved cognition in both older adults with

A Japanese study looking at 128 patients' fecal samples, found that fecal concentrations of ammonia, indole, skatole and phenol were higher in dementia patients compared to those without dementia, while levels of beneficial Bacteroides were lower in dementia patients.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/aha-it012519.php

A clinical trial involving 9361 older adults (50+) with hypertension but without diabetes or history of stroke has found that intensive control of blood pressure significantly reduced the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment.

While there was also a 15% reduction in dementia, this result did not reach statistical significance. This may have been due to the small number of new cases of dementia in the study groups.

Survey data from 6,807 Danish older adults (average age 60) in the Copenhagen City Heart Study, has found that being distressed in late midlife is associated with a higher risk of dementia in later life.

The survey measured “vital exhaustion”, which is operationalized as feelings of unusual fatigue, increased irritability and demoralization and can be considered an indicator of psychological distress. Vital exhaustion is suggested to be a response to unsolvable problems in individuals' lives, in particular when being incapable of adapting to prolonged exposure to stressors.

Poor sleep has been associated with Alzheimer's disease risk, but a new study suggests a specific aspect of sleep is important.

The study, involving 119 older adults (60+), of whom 80% were cognitively normal and the remainder very mildly impaired, found that decreased slow-wave sleep coincided with higher levels of tau in the brain and a higher tau-to-amyloid ratio in the cerebrospinal fluid.

The APOE gene, the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, is known to be involved in cholesterol and lipid metabolism. Now the largest ever genetic study of Alzheimer’s disease, using DNA from more than 1.5 million people, has identified 90 points across the genome that were associated with an increased risk of both cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

Data from 1,215 older adults, of whom 173 (14%) were African-American, has found that, although brain scans showed no significant differences between black and white participants, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) showed significantly lower levels of the brain protein tau in African-Americans.

A number of studies have found that physical exercise can help delay the onset of dementia, however the ability of exercise to slow the decline once dementia has set in is a more equivocal question. A large new study answers this question in the negative.

A small Japanese study has found evidence that those with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) show a specific decline in their ability to recognize faces, and this is accompanied by changes in the way they scan faces.

The study involved 18 patients with aMCI and 18 age-matched healthy controls. Participants were tested on their ability to perceive and remember images of faces and houses.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a precursor of Alzheimer's disease, although having MCI does not mean you are definitely going to progress to Alzheimer's.

A large study using data from the famous Framingham Heart Study has compared changes in dementia onset over the last three decades. The study found that over time the age of onset has increased while the length of time spent with dementia has decreased.

Data from over 11,500 participants in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) cohort has found evidence that orthostatic hypotension in middle age may increase the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia 20 years later.

Orthostatic hypotension is the name for the experience of dizziness or light-headedness on standing up. Previous research has suggested an association between orthostatic hypotension and cognitive decline in older adults.

Disrupted fat breakdown in the brain involved in Alzheimer’s?

A Canadian study involving 40 older adults (59-81), none of whom were aware of any major memory problems, has found that those scoring below 26 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) dementia screening test also showed shrinking of the anterolateral entorhinal cortex.

A study involving 35 adults with MCI found that those who exercised four times a week over a six-month period increased their volume of gray matter.

In Australia, it has beens estimated that 9% of people aged over 65, and 30% of those aged over 85 have dementia. However, these estimates are largely based on older data from other countries, or small local samples.

In the past few months, several studies have come out showing the value of three different tests of people's sense of smell for improving the accuracy of MCI and Alzheimer's diagnosis, or pointing to increased risk.

A study comparing the language abilities of 22 healthy young individuals, 24 healthy older individuals and 22 people with MCI, has found that those with MCI:

Following on from a previous study showing that such a virtual supermarket game administered by a trained professional can detect

Data from the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study, involving 6,467 postmenopausal women (65+) who reported some level of caffeine consumption, has found that those who consumed above average amounts of coffee had a lower risk of developing dementia.

Caffeine intake was estimated from a questionnaire. The median intake was 172 mg per day (an 8-ounce cup of brewed coffee contains 95mg of caffeine, 8-ounces of brewed black tea contains 47mg, so slightly less than 2 cups of coffee or less than 4 cups of tea). The women were cognitively assessed annually.

Our bodies’ ability to regulate its temperature gets worse with age, along with a slowing metabolism. We also become more vulnerable to Alzheimer's as we age. A study compared mice genetically engineered to manifest Alzheimer's symptoms as they age with normal mice. They found that these transgenic mice were worse at maintaining their body temperature as they aged, with the difference reaching almost 1° Celsius by the age of 12 months.

People with Alzheimer's disease develop problems in recognizing familiar faces. It has been thought that this is just part of their general impairment, but a new study indicates that a specific, face-related impairment develops early in the disease. This impairment has to do with the recognition of a face as a whole.

Data from 876 patients (average age 78) in the 30-year Cardiovascular Health Study show that virtually any type of aerobic physical activity can improve brain volume and reduce Alzheimer's risk.

As we all know, people are living longer and obesity is at appalling levels. For both these (completely separate!) reasons, we expect to see growing rates of dementia. A new analysis using data from the long-running Framingham Heart Study offers some hope to individuals, however.

I've spoken before about how the presence or absence of the “Alzheimer's gene” may affect which lifestyle changes are beneficial for you. A new study has added to that idea with a finding that seafood consumption was associated with fewer signs of Alzheimer's-related pathology, but only among those with the APOEe4 gene.

Seafood consumption was also associated with increased mercury levels in the brain, with levels rising the more seafood was consumed. However, higher levels of mercury were not correlated with any neuropathologies.

A study involving 14 years of health records from more than 274,000 Northern Californians has assessed the relative dementia risk of six different ethnicities.

The average annual rate of dementia was:

After Alzheimer's disease, the next most common type of dementia is Lewy Body disease. Far less widely known, this form of dementia is often diagnosed quite late. A new study has validated a simple rating scale that non-specialist clinicians can use to quickly and effectively diagnose LBD in about three minutes.

The Lewy Body Composite Risk Score (LBCRS) is a simple, one-page survey with structured yes/no questions for six non-motor features that are present in patients with LBD, but are much less commonly found in other forms of dementia.

We know that traumatic brain injury increases the risk of later developing neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, but we haven't known why. New mouse studies suggest a reason.

A study involving both mice and human cells adds to evidence that stress is a risk factor for Alzheimer's.

The study found that mice who were subjected to acute stress had more amyloid-beta protein in their brains than a control group. Moreover, they had more of a specific form of the protein, one that has a particularly pernicious role in the development of Alzheimer's disease.

A ten-year study involving 2,092 older adults (average age 76) has found that people tended to lose awareness of memory problems two to three years before the onset of dementia.

Being unaware of your own memory problems is common in dementia, but previous research has focused on those already diagnosed with dementia. In this study, participants had no cognitive impairment at the beginning of the study.

A new questionnaire has been developed that very quickly determines whether or not a person has dementia and whether it's very mild, mild, moderate or severe. The 10-item questionnaire takes only 3-5 minutes and can be completed by a caregiver, friend or family member.

Testing on 239 individuals with various forms of dementia and 28 healthy controls has shown the results are comparable to the gold standard used presently, which takes several hours for an experienced professional to administer, interpret and score.

A long-running study comparing African-Americans and Nigerians has found the incidence of dementia has fallen significantly over two decades among the African-Americans, but remained the same for the Nigerians (for whom it was lower anyway).

The study enrolled two cohorts, one in 1992 and one in 2001, who were evaluated every 2–3 years until 2009. The 1992 cohort included 1440 older African-Americans (70+) and 1774 Nigerian Yoruba; the 2001 cohort included 1835 African-Americans and 1895 Yoruba. None of the participants had dementia at study beginning.

A post-mortem study of five Alzheimer's and five control brains has revealed the presence of iron-containing microglia in the

Alzheimer's the evolutionary cost of better brains?

An examination of the brains of three groups of deceased individuals (13 cognitively normal, aged 20-66; 16 non-demented older adults, aged 70-99; 21 individuals with Alzheimer's, aged 60-95) has found that amyloid starts to accumulate and clump inside basal

A large meta-analysis has concluded that having diabetes increases the chance that a person with mild cognitive impairment will progress to dementia by 65%.

Last year I reported on a finding that ten lipids in the blood could predict development of

Pages

Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.