Degenerative Disease News and Research

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Rehabilitation technique for stroke appears beneficial for multiple sclerosis patients

A rehabilitation technique originally developed for stroke has now been shown to also be effective for improving function for people with multiple sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disease.

24 Apr 2018

Knee reconstructions are on the rise among the youth in Australia

According to a new study more and more young Australians are needing knee reconstruction surgeries that have risen by more than 70 per cent in the last 15 years. The new study was published today in the journal Medical Journal of Australia.

23 Apr 2018

Newly developed drug compound may help treat Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease

Scientists have developed a new drug compound that shows promise as a future treatment for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, an inherited, often painful neurodegenerative condition that affects nerves in the hands, arms, feet and legs.

20 Apr 2018

Adult-onset degenerative disease mechanism begins much earlier than previously thought

The disease mechanism for adult-onset progressive degenerative diseases begins much earlier than previously thought, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

30 Mar 2018

NIH researchers explore genetic clocks to understand role of aging in neurodegeneration

To understand the link between aging and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, NIH scientists compared the genetic clocks that tick during the lives of normal and mutant flies.

14 Mar 2018

Common knee surgery brings little or no benefit to older patients, study shows

A new Medicare records study by Johns Hopkins researchers has added to mounting evidence that a common surgery designed to remove damaged, worn ends of the thin rubbery cartilage in the knee joint brings little or no benefit to people over the age of 65.

28 Feb 2018

Kessler Foundation researcher receives grant for study on emotional processing intervention in MS

Helen Genova, PhD, Assistant Director of Neuropsychology & Neuroscience Research at Kessler Foundation, has been awarded a $44,000 grant from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

10 Jan 2018

A woman who can sniff out Parkinson’s disease helps develop diagnostic tests for the disease

Joy Milne is a 67 year old retired nurse from Perth with smelling superpowers. She can smell and detect presence of Parkinson’s disease as has been seen under test conditions. This has led to the understanding of the disease better and helped develop new diagnostic tests to detect Parkinson’s disease early.

18 Dec 2017

Single infusion of wildtype HSPCs halts cellular damage caused by neuromuscular disorder in mice

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine report that a single infusion of wildtype hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) into a mouse model of Friedreich's ataxia (FA) measurably halted cellular damage caused by the degenerative disease.

25 Oct 2017

Scientists get one step closer to reversing retinal degenerative diseases

Degenerative disorders affecting the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), such as age-related macular degeneration and autosomal recessive bestrophinopathy, can ultimately lead to blindness. Some of these life-changing disorders are the result of mutations in a single gene, called BEST1.

25 Oct 2017

Reprogrammed stem cell therapy shows promise in Parkinson's

Japanese investigators have found that their experimental stem cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease actually works. In their experimental therapy, the team of researchers “reprogrammed” stem cells to make them neurons and implanted them into the brain of monkeys with a version of Parkinson’s disease. Stem cell therapy showed improvement of symptoms in these patients and was found to be safe. The study was published yesterday, 30th August 2017 in Nature.

30 Aug 2017

Researchers pursuing new approach to treating arthritis

Researchers at ETH Zurich, Empa and the Norwegian research institute SINTEF are pursuing a new approach to treating arthritis.

23 Aug 2017

Scientists reveal differences between human and murine microglia used in degenerative disease research

The results of a new research showed that many of the genes that are expressed by microglia are different between humans and mice, which are frequently used as animal models in research on Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.

18 Aug 2017

Drug blocked by regulators found to improve quality of life for MS patients

A drug that is blocked by the EU regulatory system has now been found to improve the quality of life of people with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study by Queen Mary University of London.

18 Aug 2017

Study: Patients operated by higher volume mitral surgeons experience lower mortality and reoperations

Surgeons who perform more than 25 mitral valve operations a year are more likely to perform repairs that are durable, and their patients are more likely to be alive a year after the operation, than when operations are performed by lower-volume surgeons, an Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai study has found.

3 May 2017

Newly-discovered mechanism for compound may help prevent neurologic damage

Researchers at Oregon State University have found that a compound called rapamycin has unusual properties that may help address neurologic damage such as Alzheimer's disease.

5 Apr 2017

New test could accelerate development of better treatments for Motor Neuron Disease

A cutting-edge test developed in South Australia has the potential to expedite the worldwide quest to develop better treatments, or even a cure, for the Motor Neuron Disease (MND).

24 Feb 2017

Hand-grip test proves to be easy, reliable way to examine muscle strength decline in PD patients

UBC researchers Jenn Jakobi and Gareth Jones, both Health and Exercise Sciences professors at UBC's Okanagan campus, recently completed a study that examined the methods used to monitor the progressive advancement of Parkinson's disease (PD)--a degenerative disease that affects the central nervous system.

1 Feb 2017

Scientists investigate role of mitochondria in Alzheimer's disease pathology

On Nov. 25, 1901, a 51-year-old woman is admitted to a hospital in Frankfurt, Germany, displaying a bizarre constellation of symptoms.

8 Nov 2016

Brain inflammation may have direct involvement in development of chronic traumatic encephalopathy

For the first time, researchers have shown that inflammation in the brain may have direct involvement in the development of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). In addition, they found that the number of years one plays contact sports may predict the occurrence of CTE and that this association is partly due to increased inflammation in the brain.

3 Nov 2016