Alzheimer's & Dementia News and Research

Latest Alzheimer's & Dementia News and Research

Human brain cells created from skin cells: Potential for Alzheimer’s

This feat comes a year after researchers at Stanford University performed the same feat in mice, turning cells from the rodents' skin into neurons. The lab-created brain cells act the same as normal human brain cells, the researchers found. These cells have the same ability to send electric signals; they seem to express the same genes in the same ways; and they are able to communicate with other brain cells, as demonstrated in a lab dish and when implanted into mice.

5 Aug 2011

Scientists identify reasons behind why we are unable to recognise faces

The research, led by Dr Clea Warburton and Dr Gareth Barker in the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology and published in the Journal of Neuroscience, has investigated why we can recognise faces much better if we have extra clues as to where or indeed when we encountered them in the first place.

5 Aug 2011

Scientists convert human skin cells into forebrain neurons

Columbia University Medical Center researchers have for the first time directly converted human skin cells into functional forebrain neurons, without the need for stem cells of any kind.

5 Aug 2011

New legislation allows physicians in Texas to treat chronic Lyme disease

Summertime, when kids and grown-ups abandon the confines of the indoors and head outside to camp, hike, fish and commune with nature -- and all of her friends. Flies, mosquitoes and ticks are just a few of the critters that go along with summer outdoors, and we all do our best to avoid the biting and stinging insects, but what happens if you are accosted by a tick? What are the myths behind Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases in Texas?.

5 Aug 2011

Roadmap to overcome obstacles for using induced pluripotent stem cells

The possibility of developing stem cells from a patient's own skin and using them to treat conditions as diverse as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and cancer has generated tremendous excitement in the stem cell research community in recent years. Such therapies would avoid the controversial need for using stem cells derived from human embryos, and in theory, also bypass immunological problems inherent in using cells from one person to treat another.

5 Aug 2011

UH undergraduates seek solutions to many maladies like diabetes, Alzheimer's

Students from a variety of majors are devoting their summers to serious research at the University of Houston (UH), seeking eventual solutions to many serious maladies that include Alzheimer's, high blood pressure and cholesterol, diabetes, alcoholism and anxiety.

4 Aug 2011

NSF awards WSU researcher CAREER grant to develop neural implants

Neural implants have the potential to treat disorders and diseases that typically require long-term treatment, such as blindness, deafness, epilepsy, spinal cord injury, and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. However, implantable devices have been problematic in clinical applications because of bodily reactions that limit device functioning time.

4 Aug 2011

Vitamin C helps identify more aggressive or treatment resistant tumours

CANCER RESEARCH UK scientists have developed a new imaging technique that uses vitamin C to detect cancers likely to be more aggressive or resistant to treatment, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society today.

4 Aug 2011

Accurate, non-invasive and inexpensive test can detect Alzheimer's

Scientists from Durin Technologies, Inc., and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ)-School of Osteopathic Medicine have developed a blood test that uses human protein microarrays to detect the presence of specific antibodies in the blood that can be used to diagnose Alzheimer's disease with unprecedented accuracy.

4 Aug 2011

Older women living in a poor neighborhood have lower cognitive function

Older women who live in a lower socioeconomic status neighborhood are more likely to exhibit lower cognitive functioning than women who live in more affluent neighborhoods, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

3 Aug 2011

Study: Subjective memory deterioration could be the first manifestation of Alzheimer's

Scientists at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Universitätsklinikum Bonn, and Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen in Bonn succeeded for the first time in demonstrating that even in merely subjective cases of memory deterioration changes may be visible in certain brain structures.

3 Aug 2011

Role of molecular imaging in diagnosis and clinical trials

Two new studies published in the August issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM) provide insight into the potential of positron emission tomography (PET) to differentiate between types of dementia and to identify pharmaceuticals to slow the progress of dementia. With proposed National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the Alzheimer's Association guidelines for detecting Alzheimer's-related brain changes expected in September, these articles give a preview of what may be to come.

3 Aug 2011

UTHealth student receives UNCF/Merck fellowship for multidrug-resistant CDI research

Charles Darkoh, a graduate student at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), has been awarded a fellowship from the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and Merck for his research into a major health problem - multidrug-resistant Clostridium difficile bacterial infection.

3 Aug 2011

Better communication needed between caregivers and their relatives with dementia

Caregivers and their relatives who suffer from mild to moderate dementia often have different perceptions regarding the amount and quality of care given and received. A study by researchers at Penn State and the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging examined a major source of those differences -- caregivers do not understand the things that are important to their relatives with dementia.

3 Aug 2011

Memantine drug could boost cognitive function in people with Down syndrome

A University of Colorado School of Medicine scientist is completing a major clinical trial on a drug that could boost cognitive function in those with Down syndrome, significantly improving their quality of life and representing a potential milestone in research on this genetic condition.

3 Aug 2011

Simple ways to minimize health risks associated with cell phones

The dangers of cell phones have led to preventive policies in France, Israel, Finland, and India, and there are simple ways to minimize the health risks associated with exposure to the radiation energy they emit, according to Devra Lee Davis, PhD, MPH, President of the Environmental Health Trust, in a timely and informative interview featured in Alternative and Complementary Therapies, published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

2 Aug 2011

Smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes in middle age linked to brain damage

A new study suggests smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and being overweight in middle age may cause brain shrinkage and lead to cognitive problems up to a decade later.

2 Aug 2011

One in six older people likely to have abnormal liver test and die from all causes

One in six people over 75 are likely to have at least one abnormal liver test and those that have two or more are twice as likely to die from cancer and 17 times more likely to die from liver disease, according to research in the August issue of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

2 Aug 2011

Statins may help protect young people from future strokes

New research indicates cholesterol lowering drugs known as statins may help prevent future strokes among young people who have already had a stroke.

2 Aug 2011

Helios Scholars Program at TGen strengthens biomedical education

Tomorrow's leaders in science and medicine graduate Friday from the biomedical summer internship program at the Translational Genomics Research Institute.

30 Jul 2011