Dementia and Alzheimer Disease

One year post-launch, the Ambry Genetics and Akcea Therapeutics hereditary ATTR amyloidosis testing program has been used by more than 700 physicians. The free test screens for up to 81 genes that cause hereditary polyneuropathies and up to 92 genes associated with hereditary cardiomyopathies, including hATTR amyloidosis.

On our anniversary, take a look back at some of our most popular articles and interviews across a range of neurology topics.

The co-director of the University of Pennsylvania Memory Center will share additional insights on Alzheimer disease at the upcoming International Congress on the Future of Neurology, taking place September 27-28, 2019 in New York City.

The director emeritus of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and vice chair of the department of brain health at the University of Nevada Las Vegas spoke about therapies under investigation for the treatment of agitation and psychosis in Alzheimer disease.

The associate professor of neuroepidemiology and digital health spoke about the importance of findings from an observational study which showed that adherence to a healthy lifestyle can offset the genetic risk for dementia.

Although Alzheimer disease is not infectious by any common definition of the term, research over the past 20 years has confirmed long-standing speculation that the molecular mechanism driving neurodegeneration is fundamentally the same in Alzheimer disease and the prototypical infectious proteopathy-prion disease.

The topic was the focus of a lively panel discussion and several posters at the 2019 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, where experts in the field debated on the validity of current findings and theories.

This data demonstrates that patients with Alzheimer disease are at an increased risk for seizures, in particular in more advanced disease stages, which emphasizes a need for seizure history assessment to inform individual therapeutic decisions and the necessity of systematic treatment studies.

Previous research demonstrated that plasma neuronal-enriched extracellular vesicles exhibited elevated levels of p-tau, amyloid-beta 42, and phosphorylated insulin receptor substrate.

The professor of emergency medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health spoke about the challenges physicians face in the emergency department when dealing with patients that are cognitively impaired.

In addition to physical activity, lower vascular risk factors, assessed via the Framingham risk score, were independently associated with slower PACC decline and gray matter volume loss.

The professor of age-related diseases and Dean of the University of Exeter Medical School spoke about the need for proper training of nursing home staff in order to improve quality of life in patients with dementia.

The professor of neurology and founding chair of the John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics at the University of Miami spoke about how the risk of Alzheimer disease differs between ethnic groups, despite being associated with the same genetic marker.

The DCTclock demonstrated a 37% increase in discrimination over the traditional cognitive assessments.

uMETHOD Health has implemented a precision-medicine platform to create personalized, multidomain care plans for the treatment of dementia and mild Alzheimer disease.

The AMBAR trial is based off of the hypothesis that amyloid-beta is bound to albumin and circulates in plasma; extracting this plasma may in turn flush amyloid from the brain.

The professor of emergency medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health spoke about how telemedicine in senior living communities can effectively decrease ED use by individuals with dementia.

The concept of cognitive reserve refers to one’s capacity to be resilient to age-related brain degeneration and disease-related pathology.

People who did not use trazodone had up to a 2-fold faster decline in MMSE score than those who used the drug.

The International Congress on the Future of Neurology will take place this Fall in New York City, converging experts in neurology to discuss the latest data and best practices to better inform clinical decision-making.

Findings suggest that a subgroup of patients categorized as amyloid beta-negative may continue to accumulate the destructive protein and experience cognitive changes.

The research fellow at the University of Exeter spoke about the findings from her observational study which showed that living a favorable lifestyle could offset the risk for dementia, even if that risk is genetically linked. 



While single modality therapy is safe, feasible, and effective, researchers demonstrated that a combined modality shows greater domain-specific cognitive enhancements with higher transferability and sustainability.

Participants with high CSF Aβ1-42/tau and lower NPTX2 levels experienced greater decline throughout the 36 months than all other subgroups on memory acquisition, delayed recall, and CDR-sb.

The staff neurologist at Cleveland Clinic’s Mellen Center for MS shared her insight into the use of telemedicine in an outpatient setting across a number of subspecialties in neurology and how it can supplement care going forward.

While the clinical benefit of the therapy in Alzheimer is still unclear, the dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker increased blood flow by 20% compared to placebo in the brain’s memory and learning center, indicative of preserved cerebral autoregulation.

Two medical students who are conservatory-trained musicians describe a memorable performance at a center for older adults with dementia.

The systematic review and meta-analysis identified cNfL usefulness as a biomarker, with the potential to help differentiate between frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer disease, as well as Parkinson disease from atypical parkinsonian syndromes.

Alzheimer and circulating cholesterol linked, obesity has a big impact on MS, mild traumatic brain injury difficulties persist, and other recent findings are summarized here.

Neurology News Network for the week ending June 8, 2019.