Researchers have found that it’s possible to improve memory, even reverse memory loss, using a drug typically prescribed to treat epilepsy. Although it’s still too early to recommend the drug, levetiracetam, to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s disease, research results are promising.
A blood test is in the offing to detect Alzheimer’s disease, researchers at Emory University say.
“Reliability and failure to replicate initial results have been the biggest challenge in this field. We demonstrate here that it is possible to show consistent findings,” says William Hu, assistant professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine, who led the study.
Researchers are attempting to treat Alzheimer’s disease with antibodies, hormones and gene therapy. But will any lead to a cure? Ronald Petersen, director of the Mayo Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, talks about the latest research, and whether there might someday be a vaccine to protect the aging brain.
The second of two studies on latrepirdine, recently published in Molecular Psychiatry, demonstrates new potential for the compound in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, sleep disorders, and other neurodegenerative conditions. An international team led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine scientists found that latrepiridine, known commercially as Dimebon, reduced the level of at least two neurodegeneration-related proteins in mice.
Scientists have created an ‘early signs timeline’ for Alzheimer’s disease that they believe could help experts detect the condition up to 25 years before it strikes.The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at 128 people with a family history of early Alzheimer’s.
A buttery food flavouring ingredient found in microwave popcorn could intensify the damaging effects of abnormal brain proteins linked to Alzheimer’s, a recent study has suggested.Diacetyl (DA), an artificial food flavouring that gives popcorn and margarine its distinctive butter taste, encourages beta-amyloid proteins in the brain to ‘clump’ together, according to findings published in the Chemical Research in Toxicology journal.