Alzheimer's amyloid clumps found in young adult 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 forebrain cholinergic neurons in young adulthood. Other neurons didn't show the same extent of amyloid accumulation. Basal forebrain cholinergic neurons are the first to be affected, and to die, in aging and Alzheimer's.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/nu-aac022515.php

Reference:

[3917] Baker-Nigh, A., Vahedi S., Davis E. Goetz, Weintraub S., Bigio E. H., Klein W. L., et al.
(2015). Neuronal amyloid-β accumulation within cholinergic basal forebrain in ageing and Alzheimer’s disease.
Brain.

young adult

amyloid beta

Alzheimers

Related News

When age helps decision making

Research has shown that younger adults are better decision makers than older adults — a curious result. A new study tried to capture more ‘real-world’ decision-making, by requiring participants to evaluate each result in order to strategize the next choice.

Ability to remember memories' origin develops slowly

In the study, 18 children (aged 7-8), 20 adolescents (13-14), and 20 young adults (20-29) were shown pictures and asked to decide whether it was a new picture or one they had seen earlier.

Brain continues to develop well into our 20s

Brain imaging data from 103 healthy people aged 5-32, each of whom was scanned at least twice, has demonstrated that wiring to the

Helping students & children get enough sleep

One survey of nearly 200 undergraduate college students who were not living with a parent or legal guardian found that 55% reported getting less than seven hours sleep. This is consistent with other surveys.

Young binge drinkers less able to learn new verbal information

Following animal research indicating that binge drinking damages the

Long-term users of ecstasy risk structural brain damage

Imaging the brains of 10 young men who were long term users of ecstasy and seven of their healthy peers with no history of ecstasy use has revealed a significantly smaller

Older adults have better implicit memory

A study involving 125 younger (average age 19) and older (average age 69) adults has revealed that while younger adults showed better explicit learning, older adults were better at implicit learning. Implicit memory is our unconscious memory, which influences behavior without our awareness.

Effects of caffeine vary with quantity and gender

A study involving 80 college students (34 men and 46 women) between the ages of 18 and 40, has found that those given a caffeinated energy drink reported feeling more stimulated and less tired than those given a decaffeinated soda or no drink.

Not all cannabis strains affect memory equally

A study involving 134 cannabis users aged 16-23 has found that when they were smoking cannabis containing a low percentage of cannabidiol they performed much worse on the memory tests.

New ways of assessing connectivity establish a "brain age" measure of child development

Last year I reported on a study involving 210 subjects aged 7 to 31 that found that in contrast to the adult brain, most of the tightest connections in a child's brain are between brain regions that are physically close to each other.

Pages