Lewy Bodies News and Research

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Dementia and low brain serotonin may be linked: Study finds

Johns Hopkins researchers looked into the brain scans of persons with mild loss of thought and memory and have found that they have significantly low levels of serotonin in their brains. Serotonin is a natural brain chemical that is responsible for several functions including mood, sleep and appetite and also is important for several mental health conditions.

14 Aug 2017

Researchers develop set of tools to trace path of proteins linked to Parkinson's disease

As neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease progress, misfolded proteins clump together in neurons, recruiting normal proteins in the cell to also misfold and aggregate.

4 Aug 2017

Emory scientists show how same enzyme spurs Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease

Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are not the same. They affect different regions of the brain and have distinct genetic and environmental risk factors.

4 Jul 2017

Study highlights rate of misdiagnosis in Alzheimer's disease patients with psychosis

People with Alzheimer's disease who experience psychosis--including delusions and hallucinations--are five times more likely to be misdiagnosed with dementia with Lewy bodies compared to patients who do not, new research suggests.

30 Jun 2017

Researchers find new evidence that autoimmunity plays role in Parkinson's disease

Researchers have found the first direct evidence that autoimmunity- in which the immune system attacks the body's own tissues- plays a role in Parkinson's disease, the neurodegenerative movement disorder.

21 Jun 2017

Research suggests how malformed proteins linked to Parkinson’s could spread from the gut to the brain

Recent research on Parkinson's disease has focused on the gut-brain connection, examining patients' gut bacteria, and even how severing the vagus nerve connecting the stomach and brain might protect some people from the debilitating disease.

15 Jun 2017

NIH awards $6 million grant to Cleveland Clinic for establishing new DLB consortium

The National Institutes of Health awarded a $6 million grant to Cleveland Clinic to establish a national research consortium focused on improving the diagnosis and understanding the cause for Dementia with Lewy Bodies.

13 Jun 2017

New guidelines provide clinical and physical indicators to detect dementia with Lewy bodies

New guidelines have been published on the clinical and physical indicators to help ensure patients with dementia with Lewy bodies get an accurate diagnosis and the best care possible.

8 Jun 2017

Troubles with normal dreaming may be early warning sign for neurological conditions

Dr. John Peever at the University of Toronto has been working to answer one of humanity's greatest questions: how do we dream? He has found a certain area of the brain is responsible for this phenomenon and that troubles with normal dreaming may be an early warning sign for ailments such as Parkinson's Disease.

30 May 2017

Researchers discover genes linked to resilience against brain pathologies

The pathologies (damage) in the brain that stroke, Alzheimer's disease and other neurological conditions cause in older adults only partially explain the memory loss, reduced reasoning ability and other cognitive impairments that result from these conditions. Little is known about why the effects of brain pathology vary between people who develop it.

26 Apr 2017

GUMC launches phase II clinical study to examine safety of cancer drug for Parkinson's disease

Georgetown University Medical Center today announces the launch of a phase II clinical trial to study the safety of the cancer drug nilotinib and its effects on clinical outcomes and biomarkers in people with Parkinson's disease.

27 Feb 2017

Synthesized steroid prevents lethal protein buildup in animal model of Parkinson's disease

A synthesized steroid mirroring one naturally made by the dogfish shark prevents the buildup of a lethal protein implicated in some neurodegenerative diseases, reports an international research team studying an animal model of Parkinson's disease.

17 Jan 2017

Penn study finds evidence of AD neuropathology in post-mortem brains of LBD patients

Patients who had a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) with dementia (PDD) or dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and had higher levels of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology in their donated post-mortem brains also had more severe symptoms of these Lewy body diseases (LBD) during their lives, compared to those whose brains had less AD pathology, according to research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

6 Jan 2017

Protein involved in neurological disorders can travel from brain to stomach

Researchers of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases have found that "alpha-synuclein", a protein involved in a series of neurological disorders including Parkinson's disease, is capable of travelling from brain to stomach and that it does so following a specific pathway.

5 Jan 2017

Lack of shrinkage in the hippocampus may help predict people at risk for dementia with Lewy bodies

Dementia with Lewy bodies is a progressive disease that causes hallucinations, decline in mental abilities, rigid muscles, slow movement and tremors. With symptoms similar to Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, a correct diagnosis can be difficult.

3 Nov 2016

Lack of brain shrinkage may help identify people at risk for dementia with Lewy bodies

A lack of shrinkage in the area of the brain responsible for memory may be a sign that people with thinking and memory problems may go on to develop dementia with Lewy bodies rather than Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study published in the November 2, 2016, online issue of Neurology, a medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

2 Nov 2016

Researchers identify how amyloid beta linked to Alzheimer's disease could trigger Parkinson's

Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases are different neurodegenerative conditions that can sometimes affect the same person, which has led scientists to investigate possible links between the two.

12 Oct 2016

Abnormal protein in the brain may play important role in development of Alzheimer's disease

A recently-recognized pathologic protein in the brain may play a larger role in the development of clinical Alzheimer's disease dementia than previously recognized, according to a study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center.

30 Sep 2016

GUMC receives FDA clearance to begin clinical study of cancer drug in patients with Alzheimer's disease

Georgetown University Medical Center today announces the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has completed its review of an investigational new drug application (IND) for the use of nilotinib in a phase II clinical trial for patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.