Alzheimer's & Dementia News and Research

Latest Alzheimer's & Dementia News and Research

Older women with sleep disordered breathing may face greater risk of dementia

Older women who have sleep-related breathing problems may be at greater risk of problems with mental function, including dementia, according to a new study in the August 10, 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

10 Aug 2011

Nottingham researchers to develop new early warning system for Alzheimer's

Researchers at The University of Nottingham have been awarded £670,000 to develop a new early warning system for Alzheimer's disease.

9 Aug 2011

New drug to prevent Alzheimer's could be tested on patients within six years

A new drug to prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease could be tested on patients within six years according to researchers at Lancaster University.

9 Aug 2011

AFA to host National Brain Game Challenge on September 25

The Alzheimer's Foundation of America (AFA) is calling on crossword buffs, novices up for a challenge and others in between to participate in its inaugural National Brain Game Challenge, an online game of skill created by one of the nation's most admired puzzle masters.

9 Aug 2011

EPO issues European patent for Rexahn's neurotherapeutic compositions

Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical stage pharmaceutical company commercializing potential best in class oncology and CNS therapeutics, today announced that the European Patent Office (EPO) has granted European patent No. EP1212055 entitled "Neurotherapeutic compositions comprising a beta-lactam compound."

9 Aug 2011

Group Health study finds higher dementia risk with atrial fibrillation

The most common kind of chronically irregular heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation, is associated with a greater risk of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. This discovery by scientists at Group Health Research Institute and their collaborators was published online in advance of print on August 1 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

8 Aug 2011

New finding about cell metabolism may have implications for neurodegenerative disorders

Cells are the building blocks of the human body. They are a focus of scientific study, because when things go wrong at the cellular and molecular level the consequences for human health are often significant.

8 Aug 2011

Providers, patients worry about debt deal

Though the initial phase of the debt deal doesn't include immediate provider cuts, analysts say the next phase — the work of the 'super committee' — could make significant reductions in spending for entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid. Even some elements of the health law and scientific research could be on the chopping block.

6 Aug 2011

Idera second quarter net loss increases to $6.3 million

Idera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2011. Idera is a biotechnology company engaged in the discovery and development of DNA- and RNA-based drug candidates targeted to Toll-Like receptors (TLRs).

5 Aug 2011

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