Latest Research News

It’s been known that decreased blood flow in the brain occurs in people with Alzheimer's, and recent studies suggest that brain blood flow deficits are one of the earliest detectable symptoms of dementia. A study has now shown why it occurs: a small percentage of capillaries, the smallest blood vessels in the brain, are blocked by white blood cells stuck to the inside of the capillaries.

Recent research has shown that capilleries are vital for monitoring and directing blood flow around the brain.

Increases in brain activity are matched by increases in blood flow. Neurons require a huge amount of energy, but can’t store it themselves, so must rely on blood to deliver the nutrients they need.

Two new studies help explain how blood flow is controlled.

The first study found blood appears to be stored in the blood vessels in the space between the brain and skull.

New findings identify a mechanism that accelerates aging in the brain and gives rise to Alzheimer's disease.

The findings center on “enhancers”, which turn the activity of genes up or down based on influences like aging and environmental factors. Comparing enhancers in brain cells of people at varying stages of Alzheimer's and healthy people has revealed that in normal aging, there is a progressive loss of important epigenetic marks on enhancers. This loss is accelerated in the brains of people with Alzheimer's.

Aging linked to impaired garbage collection in the brain

A mouse study has shown that, as cells age, their ability to remove damaged proteins and structures declines.

Link found between chronic inflammation and Alzheimer's gene risk

Data from the Framingham Heart Study has found carriers of the ApoE4 gene were much more likely to develop Alzheimer’s if they also had chronic low-grade inflammation. Indeed, the researchers suggest that, in the absence of inflammation, there might be no difference of Alzheimer's risk between ApoE4 and non-ApoE4 carriers.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-10/buso-lfb101818.php

Alzheimer's gene linked to damage to brain connections

A study has found that synapses in people who had died with Alzheimer's contained clumps of clusterin and clumps of amyloid beta. These protein clumps may be damaging the links between neurons.

A study involving 4,050 people with late-onset Alzheimer's disease (mean age 80) has classified them into six groups based on their cognitive functioning at the time of diagnosis. A genetic study found two of the groups showed strong genetic associations.

Five new risk genes for Alzheimer's disease

Genetic data from more than 94,000 individuals has revealed five new risk genes for Alzheimer's disease, and confirmed 20 known others. The new genes are: IQCK, ACE, ADAM10, ADAMTS1 and WWOX.

The findings support developing evidence that groups of genes associated with specific biological processes, such as cell trafficking, lipid transport, inflammation and the immune response, are "genetic hubs" that are an important part of the disease process.

Accumulating evidence suggests that tau spreads through brain tissue like an infection, traveling from

Alzheimer's gene affects IQ from childhood

Analysis of some old longitudinal studies has found that those carrying the APOE4 gene scored lower on IQ tests during childhood and adolescence. The effect was much stronger in girls than in boys, and affected reasoning most strongly.

IQ scores were lower by 1.91 points for each APOE4 allele carried. But boys scored only an average of 0.33 points lower, while girls scored almost 3 points lower for each APOE4 allele.

Almost all the participants (92%) were white.

Data from a ten-year study involving 345 Alzheimer's patients has found that cholinesterase inhibitors work better with those who don't have the gene CHRFAM7A.

Brain scans of 9,772 people aged 44 to 79, who were enrolled in the UK Biobank study, have revealed that smoking, high blood pressure, high pulse pressure, diabetes, and high BMI — but not high cholesterol — were all linked to greater brain shrinkage, less

A large Chinese study involving 20,000 people has found that the longer people were exposed to air pollution, the worse their cognitive performance in verbal and math tests. The effect of air pollution on verbal tests became more pronounced with age, especially for men and the less educated.

The study followed the participants from 2010 to 2014, meaning that the same individuals could be assessed as air pollution varied from one year to the next.

The findings add to previous research showing the harmful effects of air pollution on cognitive performance in children.

A review of 34 longitudinal studies, involving 71,244 older adults, has concluded that depression is associated with greater cognitive decline.

The study included people who presented with symptoms of depression as well as those that were diagnosed as clinically depressed, but excluded any who were diagnosed with dementia at the start of study.

Previous research has found that depression is associated with an increased dementia risk.

Ten minutes of light exercise boosts memory

A study involving epilepsy patients who had electrodes implanted into their brain has revealed that memory

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) occurs when a person's breathing is interrupted during sleep.

People with OSA are known to suffer memory problems and also have higher rates of depression.

A new study connects the two by finding that people with untreated OSA had problems recalling specific details about their lives. Previous research has established that persistent depression is associated with overly general autobiographical memories, where people don't remember many specific details of life events.

The idea that bilingual children have superior executive function compared to monolingual children has been challenged in recent research. Executive function controls your attention, and helps with such tasks as remembering instructions, controlling responses, and shifting swiftly between tasks. It is positively correlated with children's academic achievement.

A randomized clinical trial involving 103 teenage athletes who sustained concussions while playing sports found that those who underwent a supervised, aerobic exercise program took significantly less time to recover compared to those who instead engaged in mild stretching.

A study following nearly 28,000 older men for 20 years has found that regular consumption of leafy greens, dark orange and red vegetables and berry fruits, and orange juice, was associated with a lower risk of memory loss.

The study looked at 27,842 male health professionals, who were an average age of 51 in 1986, when the study began. Participants filled out questionnaires about how many servings of fruits, vegetables and other foods they had each day, at the beginning of the study and then every four years.

Specifically:

Poor sleep has been associated with the development of Alzheimer's disease, and this has been thought to be in part because the protein amyloid beta increases with sleep deprivation. A new study explains more.

Experiments with mice show that sleep deprivation also rapidly increases levels of the other key Alzheimer’s disease protein, tau tangles.

The work built on findings that tau is high in older people who sleep poorly, and that, when people are kept awake all night, their tau levels rise by about 50%.

A small study has found that a 12-week exercise program significantly improved cognition in both older adults with

A Japanese study looking at 128 patients' fecal samples, found that fecal concentrations of ammonia, indole, skatole and phenol were higher in dementia patients compared to those without dementia, while levels of beneficial Bacteroides were lower in dementia patients.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/aha-it012519.php

A clinical trial involving 9361 older adults (50+) with hypertension but without diabetes or history of stroke has found that intensive control of blood pressure significantly reduced the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment.

While there was also a 15% reduction in dementia, this result did not reach statistical significance. This may have been due to the small number of new cases of dementia in the study groups.

Survey data from 6,807 Danish older adults (average age 60) in the Copenhagen City Heart Study, has found that being distressed in late midlife is associated with a higher risk of dementia in later life.

The survey measured “vital exhaustion”, which is operationalized as feelings of unusual fatigue, increased irritability and demoralization and can be considered an indicator of psychological distress. Vital exhaustion is suggested to be a response to unsolvable problems in individuals' lives, in particular when being incapable of adapting to prolonged exposure to stressors.

Poor sleep has been associated with Alzheimer's disease risk, but a new study suggests a specific aspect of sleep is important.

The study, involving 119 older adults (60+), of whom 80% were cognitively normal and the remainder very mildly impaired, found that decreased slow-wave sleep coincided with higher levels of tau in the brain and a higher tau-to-amyloid ratio in the cerebrospinal fluid.

The APOE gene, the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, is known to be involved in cholesterol and lipid metabolism. Now the largest ever genetic study of Alzheimer’s disease, using DNA from more than 1.5 million people, has identified 90 points across the genome that were associated with an increased risk of both cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

Data from 1,215 older adults, of whom 173 (14%) were African-American, has found that, although brain scans showed no significant differences between black and white participants, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) showed significantly lower levels of the brain protein tau in African-Americans.

New method finds undetected brain impairments in ice hockey players with and without diagnosed concussions

The American Academy of Pediatric now supports children and teens engaging in light physical activity and returning to school as they recover. It also now advises against complete removal of electronic devices, such as television, computers and smartphones, following a concussion.

"We've learned that keeping kids in dark rooms and eliminating all cognitive and physical activity actually worsened a lot of kids' symptoms rather than improving them."

Can stronger necks reduce concussion risk & severity?

A review of research on the role that the neck’s strength, size, and posture play in reducing concussion risk has concluded that neck strength, size, and posture may reduce risk by lessening the magnitude of force upon impact. It’s suggested that exercises that increase neck strength and possibly size could substantially reduce risk or severity of injury.

A review of nearly 2.8 million patient cases in Denmark found that the risk of dementia in individuals with a history of TBI was 24% higher than those without a history of TBI, after accounting for other risk factors.

Risk was greater when the TBI was characterized as "severe" — 35% compared to an increased risk of 17% for a single "mild" TBI or concussion.

Moreover, dementia risk increased 33% higher for two or three TBIs, 61% higher for four TBIs, and 183% higher for five or more TBIs.

A study showing that a certain type of instructor-led brain training protocol can stimulate structural changes in the brain and neural connections even years after a traumatic brain injury (TBI) challenges the widely held belief that recovery from a TBI is limited to two years after an injury.

The study included 60 adults with TBI symptoms lasting an average of eight years. Participants were randomly placed into one of two cognitive training groups:

Key points that are new in the 5th International Consensus statement on concussion in sport:

A small study involving 71 adults who struggled with persistent cognitive difficulties after suffering a traumatic brain injury at least four months before has compared two cognitive training programs with and without drug therapy.

The two six-week programs were

It’s long been speculated that there’s a critical period for learning a new language, but the specifics are a matter of debate. It is difficult to follow a sufficient number of language learners through their years of learning. But a new study has got over that difficulty by using the ability of Facebook to get vast numbers of people, who represent many stages of learning.

A pilot study involving 22 breast cancer patients currently receiving chemotherapy (mean age 54), has found that those with higher levels of inflammatory biomarkers did significantly worse on tests for short-term visual memory. One particular biomarker — tumor necrosis factor-alpha (as reflected through its two soluble receptors, TNFRI and TNFRII) — was the strongest indicator of cognitive problems.

One important reason for the greater cognitive problems commonly experienced as we age, is our increasing difficulty in ignoring distracting and irrelevant information. But it may be that in some circumstances that propensity can be used to help memory.

A number of studies have found that physical exercise can help delay the onset of dementia, however the ability of exercise to slow the decline once dementia has set in is a more equivocal question. A large new study answers this question in the negative.

Musicians and people who are bilingual have long been shown to have a better

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