Alzheimer's Disease News and Research

RSS

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an irreversible, progressive brain disease that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills and, eventually, the ability to carry out the simplest tasks of daily living. In most people with AD, symptoms first appear after age 60. AD is the most common cause of dementia among older people, but it is not a normal part of aging. Dementia refers to a decline in cognitive function that interferes with daily life and activities. AD starts in a region of the brain that affects recent memory, then gradually spreads to other parts of the brain. Although treatment can slow the progression of AD and help manage its symptoms in some people, currently there is no cure for this devastating disease.

High-resolution scans reveal how depression affects hippocampal subfields

Researchers from the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (Stevens INI) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have found that depression is associated with smaller volume in a specific part of the hippocampus, a brain region essential for learning and memory.

6 Aug 2026

Study reveals treatment gaps for atypical Alzheimer's disease patients

Many people with less common forms of Alzheimer's disease may not qualify for newer anti-amyloid treatments designed to slow the disease, according to a study published August 5, 2026, in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

5 Aug 2026

NIH funds Boston University center for Alzheimer's prevention studies

Maria Glymour, Andrew Stokes, and Deborah Carr will lead the Boston University-Quantitative Population Science and Healthy Cognitive Aging Research Program (BU-SHARP) to foster national research collaboration on preventing and ameliorating the consequences of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias in disproportionately affected populations.

5 Aug 2026

New metric detects early Alzheimer’s changes in brain's white matter

Alzheimer's disease has traditionally been studied as a condition that primarily affects the brain's gray matter, where neuronal cell bodies are located and some of the disease's most characteristic lesions accumulate.

5 Aug 2026

New study advances understanding of dementia after age 90

It may seem natural to assume that people experience cognitive decline after age 90, but until recently, researchers had limited evidence about how advanced age affects the brain.

4 Aug 2026

Exercise helps protect Hispanic adults from late life cognitive decline

Previous studies have examined the associations between adherence to LS7 and cognitive outcomes, with findings suggesting that higher LS7 scores are associated with better cognitive performance, reduced dementia risk and improved brain health.

4 Aug 2026

New 3D brain tissue model accelerates Alzheimer's drug development

How can Alzheimer's research be made faster, better, and more effective? After decades of intensive research worldwide and despite recent therapeutic advances, scientists have not managed to fully arrest the progress of the disease.

4 Aug 2026

Study connects late-life psychosis to abnormal tau protein buildup

Hallucinations and delusions that appear for the first time in midlife or later are often treated as psychiatric symptoms whose biological cause is unclear.

4 Aug 2026

New AI model generates detailed maps of aging in brain regions

USC researchers have developed an approach that uses artificial intelligence to generate detailed maps that highlight differences in how distinct parts of the brain age.

3 Aug 2026

Discovery of calcium channel mechanism offers clues for brain disorder treatments

DGIST (President Kunwoo Lee) announced that a research team led by Professor Byung Chang Suh of the Department of Brain Sciences has, for the first time, uncovered a novel molecular mechanism that regulates the "N-type voltage-gated calcium channel (CaV2.2)," which plays a critical role in neural signal transmission.

29 Jul 2026

Overactive brain immune response linked to rare, severe genetic epilepsy

An overactive immune response in the brain may play a role in Dravet Syndrome, a rare and severe genetic epilepsy that typically begins in infancy, according to Weill Cornell Medicine researchers.

29 Jul 2026

A closer look at Parkinson’s brains finds tau where standard tests saw little

Researchers used single-molecule and super-resolution imaging to profile protein aggregates across six brain regions from 29 post-mortem donors, detecting high-intensity phosphorylated tau aggregates in the Parkinson’s disease putamen despite negligible conventional tau staining. PD cases with dementia showed greater tau burden than those without dementia, while the assay did not detect a PD-specific population of nanoscopic alpha-synuclein aggregates.

29 Jul 2026

THC and CBD combination rapidly reduces advanced dementia agitation

A combination of CBD and THC rapidly and significantly reduces agitation in hospice-eligible people with dementia, suggest topline results from the Phase 2 LiBBY (Life's End Benefits of cannaBidiol and tetrahYdrocannabinol) clinical trial.

28 Jul 2026

Can Alzheimer's genes predict who becomes a SuperAger?

A study on SuperAgers shows exceptional memory isn't solely due to lower Alzheimer's genetic risk, highlighting the role of biological and lifestyle factors.

28 Jul 2026

Blood tests improve Alzheimer's detection in Down syndrome patients

New blood tests that detect early changes associated with Alzheimer's disease are making diagnosis easier and accessible to more patients, since they are less invasive than the brain scans or spinal taps typically used for a definitive diagnosis.

27 Jul 2026

Signals traveling from the gut through the vagus nerve help form memories

When French writer Marcel Proust famously recalled his childhood from the taste of a Madeline cookie, his stomach may have done some of the work.

27 Jul 2026

UC Davis researcher receives grant to study perceived cognitive aging

University of California, Davis Professor of Neurology Sarah Tomaszewski Farias has been awarded a $3.3 million five-year grant from The National Institute on Aging to study if cultural differences affect how people perceive cognitive changes as they age.

27 Jul 2026