Brain
Research Seeks to Understand Memory Loss in Older People
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Today, one out of very 12 people aged 65 and older will experience a decline in their ability to remember, think clearly, reason and make daily decisions. The decline in memory and mental abilities may be subtle, but it limits quality of life and oftentimes leads to depression.
Misericordia University researchers are leading a team of students and faculty from two regional institutions of higher education in a six-month study to better understand how to treat people with memory problems and who have a decreased ability to think clearly.
James Siberski, M.S., assistant professor, Geriatric-Care Manager Certificate Program director and coordinator of the Gerontology Education Center for Professional Development at Misericordia University; and his colleague, Margie Eckroth-Bucher, R.N., associate professor of nursing at Bloomsburg University; are spearheading the research with Misericordia students Jamie Donahue, Mehoopany, Pa.; Grant Greenberg, Douglaston, N.Y.; Pam Roberts, Shavertown, Pa.; Cheryl Wilson, Shohola, Pa.; and Emily Getz, Kunkletown, Pa., at the Maria Joseph Manor’s Continuing Care Community in Danville.
Ground-breaking new insight into the development of Alzheimer’s disease
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Leuven, Belgium ¨C According to estimates there are 85,000 Alzheimer patients in our country and approximately 20,000 new cases every year. This spectacular increase is due to the increasing ageing population. Unfortunately it is still unclear precisely which ageing process forms the basis of this spectacular rise in the occurrence of the disease. VIB scientists affiliated to K.U.Leuven have discovered an important molecular link between Alzheimer’s disease and the development of the typical plaques in the brains of Alzheimer patients. This discovery is an important breakthrough in the fundamental research into the cause of Alzheimer’s disease.
Aerobic Exercise Boosts Older Bodies and Minds, Review Suggests
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Aerobic exercise could give older adults a boost in brainpower, according to a recent review of studies from the Netherlands.
“Aerobic physical exercises that improve cardiovascular fitness also help boost cognitive processing speed, motor function and visual and auditory attention in healthy older people,” said lead review author Maaike Angevaren.
Around age 50, even healthy older adults begin to experience mild declines in cognition, such as occasional memory lapses and reduced ability to pay attention. Convincing evidence shows that regular exercise contributes to healthy aging, but could the types of exercise a person does influence his or her cognitive fitness?
How Big Is Your Brain? Its Size May Protect You from Memory Loss
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From autopsies, researchers have long known that some people die with sharp minds and perfect memories, but their brains riddled with the plaques and tangles of Alzheimer’s disease. New research shows that those people have a larger part of the brain called the hippocampus. The research will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 60th Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 12 – April 19, 2008.
“This larger hippocampus may protect these people from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease-related brain changes,” said study author Deniz Erten-Lyons, MD, with Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, and member of the American Academy of Neurology. “Hopefully this will lead us eventually to prevention strategies.”
For the study, researchers evaluated the brains of 12 people who had sharp memories and thinking skills at the time of death, but whose autopsies showed a high amount of Alzheimer’s plaques. Their brains were compared to those of 23 people who had the same amount of plaques in their brains, but had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease before death.
Are teenage brains really different?
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Philadelphia, March 28, 2008 Ц Many parents are convinced that the brains of their teenage offspring are different than those of children and adults. New data confirms that this is the case. An article by Jay N. Giedd, MD, of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), published in the April 2008 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health describes how brain changes in the adolescent brain impact cognition, emotion and behavior.
Dr. Giedd reviews the results from the NIMH Longitudinal Brain Imaging Project. This study and others indicate that gray matter increases in volume until approximately the early teens and then decreases until old age. Pinning down these differences in a rigorous way had been elusive until MRI was developed, offering the capacity to provide extremely accurate quantifications of brain anatomy and physiology without the use of ionizing radiation.
Different use of brain areas may explain memory problems in schizophrenics
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The enduring memory problems that people with schizophrenia experience may be related to differences in how their brains process information, new research has found.
The Public Library of Science published the report by Vanderbilt University researchers Junghee Lee, Bradley S. Folley, John Gore and Sohee Park in the online journal PLOS One March 12.
“We found that schizophrenic patients use different areas of their brain than healthy individuals do for working memory, which is an active form of short-term memory,” Park said.
Mother-daughter conflict, low serotonin level may be deadly combination
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A combination of negative mother-daughter relationships and low blood levels of serotonin, an important brain chemical for mood stability, may be lethal for adolescent girls, leaving them vulnerable to engage in self-harming behaviors such as cutting themselves.
New University of Washington research indicates that these two factors in combination account for 64 percent of the difference among adolescents, primarily girls, who engage in self-harming behaviors and those who do not.
“Girls who engage in self harm are at high risk for attempting suicide, and some of them are dying,” said Theodore Beauchaine, a UW associate professor of psychology and co-author of a new study. “There is no better predictor of suicide than previous suicide attempts.”
Does gingko biloba affect memory?
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Taking the supplement ginkgo biloba had no clear-cut benefit on the risk of developing memory problems, according to a study published in the February 27, 2008, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The three-year study involved 118 people age 85 and older with no memory problems. Half of the participants took ginkgo biloba extract three times a day and half took a placebo. During the study, 21 people developed mild memory problems, or questionable dementia: 14 of those took the placebo and seven took the ginkgo extract. Although there was a trend favoring ginkgo, the difference between those who took gingko versus the placebo was not statistically significant.
The researchers made an interesting observation when they examined the data at the end of the trial. Taking into account whether people followed directions in taking the study pills, they found that people who reliably took the supplement had a 68 percent lower risk of developing mild memory problems than those who took the placebo. Without further study, it is unclear if this difference is real or just a chance occurrence.
NIH scientists detect fatal copper disorder at birth
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A test developed by NIH scientists could greatly extend the survival of infants with Menkes disease, a rare, otherwise fatal disorder of copper metabolism. The test allows for early diagnosis of the condition, when the chance for successful treatment is greatest. Their work is described in the February 7 New England Journal of Medicine.
Untreated, Menkes disease results in irreparable harm to the brain and nervous system. Treatment consists of injections with a copper-containing drug. Children with Menkes disease typically die during the first decade of life. Previously, there was no blood test for early detection of Menkes disease.
“The study represents an important advance in the diagnosis and treatment of a rare but devastating genetic disorder,” said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of NIH’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the lead NIH institute that conducted the study. “The laboratory techniques the researchers used to detect Menkes disease eventually may provide the basis for a newborn screening test to identify children with Menkes at birth, so they have the greatest chance to benefit from treatment.”
Deep brain stimulation may improve memory
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Deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery, which is used to treat Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, is now being studied for its potential to treat a variety of conditions. For example, DBS of the hypothalamus has been used to treat cluster headaches and aggressiveness in humans, and stimulating this area influences feeding behavior in animals. A new study found that hypothalamic DBS performed in the treatment of a patient with morbid obesity unexpectedly evoked detailed autobiographical memories. The study will be published online in the Annals of Neurology, the official journal of the American Neurological Association.
Led by Andres Lozano, Professor of Neurosurgery and Canada Research Chair in Neuroscience and his team at the Toronto Western Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, researchers conducted an experimental study to treat a 50-year-old man with a lifelong history of obesity in whom a variety of treatment approaches had failed.
Reversal of Alzheimer’s Symptoms Within Minutes
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An extraordinary new scientific study, which for the first time documents marked improvement in Alzheimer’s disease within minutes of administration of a therapeutic molecule, has just been published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation.
This new study highlights the importance of certain soluble proteins, called cytokines, in Alzheimer’s disease. The study focuses on one of these cytokines, tumor necrosis factor-alpha(TNF), a critical component of the brain’s immune system. Normally, TNF finely regulates the transmission of neural impulses in the brain. The authors hypothesized that elevated levels of TNF in Alzheimer’s disease interfere with this regulation. To reduce elevated TNF, the authors gave patients an injection of an anti-TNF therapeutic called etanercept. Excess TNF-alpha has been documented in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with Alzheimer’s.
Foster care boosts IQ of children in orphanages
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Abandoned children in Romania who were removed from orphanages and put in foster care had far better reasoning, language, and other intellectual skills than those who remained, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
The study is one of the first scientific investigations of the impact of foster care on reversing the damage of severe neglect to a child’s developing brain.
Sugary Beverages May Increase Alzheimer’s Risk
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Excess drinking of sugary beverages like soda may increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, suggests new research in mice. Although the exact mechanisms aren’t known, obesity and diabetes are both associated with higher incidences of Alzheimer’s. Ling Li and her colleagues tested whether high sugar consumption in an otherwise normal diet would affect Alzheimer’s progression.
They used a genetic mouse model that develops Alzheimer’s-like symptoms in adulthood, and over a 25 week period supplemented the regular, balanced diet of half the animals with 10% sugar water. Afterwards, they compared the metabolism, memory skills (by means of various mazes) and brain composition of the regular and sugar-fed mice.
Allergies may protect against brain cancer
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A history of allergies may reduce the risk of a particular type of brain tumor called glioma, investigators report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Little is known about what causes glioma, note Dr. Eleni Linos, of Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues. “Atopic (allergic) diseases are on the rise in western populations, with increasing interest in their long-term health consequences,” they point out. “An inverse association between (allergy) and the risk of glioma has been observed.”
Pet Scan Helps Distinguish Alzheimer’s from Other Dementia
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A PET scan (positron emission tomography) that measures uptake of sugar in the brain significantly improves the accuracy of diagnosing a type of dementia often mistaken for Alzheimer’s disease, a study led by a University of Utah dementia expert has found.
The scan, FDG-PET, helped six doctors from three national Alzheimer’s disease centers correctly diagnose frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer’s in almost 90 percent of cases in the study—an improvement of as much as 14 percent from usual clinical diagnostic methods. FDG stands for fluorodeoxyglucose, a short-lived radioactive form of sugar injected into people during PET scans to show activity levels in different parts of the brain. In Alzheimer’s low activity is mostly in the back part of the brain; in FTD, low activity is mostly in the front of the brain.
