Neuro Topics - Alzheimer’s disease
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October 11, 2024
New research from Molly P. Jarman and colleagues, first author Alexander J. Ordoobad, finds that dementia is more frequently diagnosed within one year of a fall compared to other types of injuries.
Original article in: JAMA Network Open >
August 29, 2024
New research from Sharon G Curhan and colleagues (first author Tian-Shin Yeh) has found that an episode of shingles is associated with about a 20 percent higher long-term risk of subjective cognitive decline, one of the earliest noticeable symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
August 29, 2024
New research in tadpoles from Donald E. Ingber and colleagues (first author Maria Plaza Oliver) shows that Donepezil, a widely administered FDA-approved drug used to treat Alzheimer’s Disease, can potential buy patients more time to survive critical injuries and diseases, even when disaster strikes far from a hospital.
Original article in: ACS Nano >
July 18, 2024
New research suggests intensive diet and lifestyle changes may not only forestall cognitive decline related to Alzheimer’s disease but possibly bring some improvement to those in early stages. From Steven Arnold, Rudolph Tanzi, and colleagues. Read more at the Harvard Gazette.
July 3, 2024
Using imaging reports to back up their findings, researchers have concluded that reports from patients and their partners about cognitive decline can be an early indicator of an accumulation of tau tangles, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
Original article in: Neurology >
May 21, 2024
HMS News profiles the work of Chirag Patel, others at Harvard, and the Human Exposome Project—which aims to discover the role of various environmental exposures in human disease and health. One such avenue of inquiry showing promise is using AI to help analyze how a lifetime of environmental exposures affects the onset and progression of complex neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's.
Original article in: Neurology >
September 13, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Tracy Young-Pearse and colleagues using stem cells from patients with Alzheimer’s. They studied the disease risk gene SORL1 and found that loss of normal SORL1 function leads to a reduction in two other key proteins known to be involved in Alzheimer’s -- providing a mechanistic link between strong genetic risk factors.
Original article in: Cell Reports >
May 25, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez, Yakeel Quiroz, and colleagues. They studied the extraordinary case of a patient with strong genetic predisposition for early-onset Alzheimer’s disease who remained cognitively intact more than two decades beyond the expected age of memory impairment. This led to the discovery of a protective variant, a pathway for ‘resilience’ to dementia, and the identification of a brain region to target with therapies.
Original article in: Nature Medicine >
March 3, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Hyungsoon Im, Sudeshna Das, and first author Matthew Leming. Using a new deep-learning model trained on tens of thousands of routine brain scans, and they spotted disease risk with 90% accuracy.
Original article in: PLoS One >
December 8, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Sharon K. Inouye, and colleagues, co-first authors Tammy Hshieh and Ray Yun Gou, analyzing one-year health care costs for older hospitalized patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. They found costs were higher for those who had delirium than for those who did not.
Original article in: Alzheimer's & Dementia >
July 15, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Winston Hide and colleagues, first author Sarah Morgan, involving text-mining of over 200,000 publication abstracts that revealed that broad effects of the disease are reflected in immune, metabolic, and depression-related pathways.
July 15, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Zhongcong Xie and colleagues, first author Feng Liang, revealing that two newly identified plasma biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease can predict postoperative delirium, one of the most common postoperative complications in older patients.
Original article in: Annals of Surgery >
June 15, 2022
Boston Children's Hospital Answer article on new research from Christopher A. Walsh and colleagues, co-first authors August Yue Huang and Michael B. Miller, revealing that that people with Alzheimer’s have an abundance of newly acquired mutations in their neurons — more than people of the same age without Alzheimer’s, and enough to disable genes important to brain function.
Original article in: Nature >
May 24, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Yakeel Quiroz and colleagues, co-first authors Edmarie Guzmán-Vélez and Ibai Diez, showing that the accumulation of amyloid-beta and tau proteins can disrupt brain connectivity years before Alzheimer's symptoms emerge.
Original article in: PNAS >
May 4, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Michael A. Lodato, Eunjung Alice Lee, Christopher A. Walsh, Michael B. Miller, and colleagues, demonstrating that somatic mutations accumulated in the brain cells of patients with Alzheimer’s disease at a faster rate, potentially explaining why brain cells die and revealing new pathways to target for treatment.
Original article in: Nature >
May 4, 2022
Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.
Original article in: Nature >
May 4, 2022
Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.
Original article in: Nature >
November 4, 2021
Valentina Lagomarsino shares new research from the lab of Dr. Tracy Young-Pearse. They generated induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) derived neurons from 53 deceased individuals and used them to identify specific proteins and pathways that are associated with an increased risk score for late onset Alzheimer's disease.
Original article in: Neuron >
November 2, 2021
Sarah Melzer from the Sabatini lab shares new work on the functions of the neuropeptide GRP in regulating fear memories. Their work highlights the mechanisms through which GRP modulates a specialized neuronal circuit in the cortex during fear conditioning.
Original article in: Cell >
September 1, 2021
Massachusetts General Hospital News article on new research from the labs of Christiane Wrann, Rudolph Tanzi, and Bruce Spiegelman, co-first authors Mohammad Islam and Sophia Valaris, demonstrating for the first time that irisin, the cleaved and circulating form of the exercise-induced membrane protein FNDC5, is sufficient to confer the benefits of exercise on cognitive function.
Original article in: Nature Metabolism >
July 29, 2021
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Filip Swirski, Rudolph Tanzi, and colleagues, first author Cameron McAlpine, suggesting that Interleukin-3 from astrocytes may reprogram immune responses in the brain that cause cell death and lead to dementia.
Original article in: Nature >
June 11, 2021
HMS News article on new research from Rudolph Tanzi and colleagues, first author Raja Bhattacharyya, discovering how amyloid beta—the neurotoxin believed to be at the root of Alzheimer’s disease—forms in axons and related structures that connect neurons in the brain, where it causes the most damage.
Original article in: Cell Reports >
April 23, 2021
Harvard Gazette article on new research from the lab of Christina Woo, first author Yun Ge, on the development of a new highly-selective tool to study proteins through the sugars they depend on.
Original article in: Nature Chemical Biology >
April 8, 2021
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Bradley Hyman and colleagues, co-first authors Susanne Wegmann and Sarah L. DeVos, applying a genetic engineering strategy to dramatically reduce levels of tau — a key protein that accumulates and becomes tangled in the brain during the development of Alzheimer’s disease — in an animal model of the condition.
Original article in: Science Advances >
March 23, 2021
HMS News article on new research from Mark Albers, Artem Sokolov, and colleagues, co-first authors Steve Rodriguez and Clemens Hug, using an artificial intelligence-based method to screen currently available medications as possible treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
Original article in: Nature Communications >
February 12, 2021
Yusuke Fukuda from the lab of Rosalind Segal shares new work identifying and exploring the function of an RNA-binding protein called SFPQ, which selectively binds to KIF5A--a kinesin motor protein in axons which is frequently mutated in Charcot-Marie-Tooth disorder and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Original article in: Journal of Cell Biology >
February 8, 2021
Harvard Gazette article on new research from the labs of Keith A. Johnson and colleagues, first author Justin Sanchez, on the development of an automated method that identifies and tracks the development of harmful tau deposits in a patient’s brain.
February 8, 2021
Harvard Gazette article recapping an online seminar about mental health during the pandemic. Experts from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation gathered for an hour long online discussion of what may be one of the pandemic’s most painful if lesser-recognized effects.
November 30, 2020
BCH Discoveries article on new research from the labs of Judith Steen and Hanno Steen, co-first authors Hendrik Wesseling and Waltraud Mair. They find that the Tau protein looks very different at different stages of Alzheimer's disease, undergoing a series of chemical changes over time. This discovery suggests that multiple Alzheimer's drugs may be needed, to target different disease stages.
Original article in: Cell >
May 26, 2020
The MGH Multicultural Alzheimer's Prevention Program (MAPP) recently launched a research study to examine the impact of COVID19 on the well-being, memory and cognition of ethnically diverse older individuals.
Original article in: Cell >
November 27, 2019
HMS News article on new research from the lab of Yakeel Quiroz-Gaviria and colleagues, first authors Joseph F. Arboleda-Velasquez, Francisco Lopera, and Michael O’Hare, identifying a new gene variant that may protect against Alzheimer's disease.
Original article in: Nature Medicine >
November 1, 2019
The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) presented its highest honor, the Ralph W.Gerard Prize in Neuroscience, to Michael Greenberg and Catherine Dulac.
Original article in: Nature Medicine >
November 1, 2019
Her research shows how neurons outside of the brain — those that control the sensation of touch — can alter brain function and shape select behaviors associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
Original article in: Nature Medicine >
November 1, 2019
The 2019 Cowan Award was presented to Dr. Joshua R. Sanes for outstanding contributions in developmental neuroscience.
Original article in: Nature Medicine >
November 1, 2019
The College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) has presented McLean Hospital’s Bertha K. Madras, PhD, with its Innovator Award.
Original article in: Nature Medicine >
November 1, 2019
This award is made possible by a generous gift from the Aramont Charitable Foundation and provides critical funding to advance high-risk, high reward science conducted by graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty.
Original article in: Nature Medicine >
October 26, 2019
This award challenges investigators at all career levels to pursue new research directions and develop groundbreaking, high-impact approaches to a broad area of biomedical, behavioral or social science.
Original article in: Nature Medicine >
October 16, 2019
New research from the labs of Bruce Yanker and colleagues, co-first authors Joseph Zullo and Derek Drake, shows that neural activity emerges as a factor in longevity.
Original article in: Nature >
October 4, 2019
Pioneers of optogenetics celebrated at 2019 Warren Alpert Prize Symposium
Original article in: Nature >
August 22, 2019
Gene linked to rare disorder also regulates key Alzheimer’s enzyme.
Original article in: Cell >
July 22, 2019
Hopi Hoekstra was awarded the C. Hart Merriam Award by the American Society of Mammalogists.
Original article in: Cell >
July 12, 2019
HMS News article on new research from the lab of Rudolph Tanzi, first author Ana Griciuc, on how crosstalk between certain microglial receptors regulates neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease.
Original article in: Neuron >
June 24, 2019
the Dean’s Community Service Award was established in 1999 to recognize individuals whose dedication and commitment to community service have made a positive impact on the local, national, or international community.
Original article in: Neuron >
June 18, 2019
He is profiled in the June 2019 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Original article in: Neuron >
June 14, 2019
Lucas is a postdoc in the lab of Anne Takesian at Mass Eye and Ear.
Original article in: Neuron >
June 14, 2019
Jeffrey Moffitt and Alan Brown, faculty at HMS and Boston Children's Hospital, are among 22 earlier career researchers selected by Pew Charitable Trusts to join the Pew Scholars Program in Biomedical Sciences.
Original article in: Neuron >
June 7, 2019
As dean for graduate education, Segal will be responsible for the strategy, oversight and coordination of graduate education at HMS,
Original article in: Neuron >
April 9, 2019
Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have successfully cleared patient-derived brain cells of an abnormal protein associated with dementia and other neurogenerative disorders.
Original article in: eLife >
March 6, 2019
Insulin signaling failures in the brain linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
Original article in: PNAS >
January 29, 2019
New cell model of most common form of Alzheimer’s points to molecular causes, drug target.
Original article in: Cell Reports >
September 6, 2018
Harvard Gazette article highlighting a study from the lab of Rudolph E. Tanzi at MGH and colleagues, demonstrating that exercise generates new neurons and improves cognition in mouse models.
Original article in: Science >
September 5, 2018
HMS News article on research from the lab of Bradley T. Hyman and colleagues demonstrating how an Alzheimer’s associated tau protein disrupts molecular transport within neurons.
Original article in: Neuron >