February 19, 2020

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

USA2 SPOTLIGHT

Register now for the inaugural Global Alzheimer’s Platform (GAP) Foundation Innovation Summit, in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. The Summit will focus on the pressing need for investment in new Alzheimer’s therapies and novel technologies to speed treatments and cure(s) to market. May 5, 2020 in Washington, DC. Register here. GAP is an initiative of UsAgainstAlzheimer’s.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

A February 18, 2020 News Wise article focused on findings, in a new report from Alzheimer Europe, of a collaborative analysis of dementia prevalence studies and rates in Europe. According to the report’s key finding, “The number of people with dementia in Europe will almost double by 2050, increasing to 14,298,671 in the European Union and 18,846,286 in the wider European region.” “If people with dementia, their families and carers are to receive the high-quality and person-centred care they need, governments must ensure their health and care systems are ready to meet this demand and greater investments in research into the treatment and prevention of dementia are needed,” said Alzheimer Europe Executive Director Jean Georges.

RESEARCH AND SCIENCE

According to a February 18, 2020 GEN article, University of South Florida Health (USF Health) Morsani College of Medicine researchers found that an oligomerized form of the protein β-arrestin2 increased the accumulation of tau by disrupting the brain’s waste removal process of autophagy. Blocking oligomerization suppressed dementia-causing tau in a mouse model of FTLD (frontotemporal lobar degeneration), the second leading cause of dementia after AD. “Studying FTLD gave us that window to study a key feature of both types of dementias, without the confusion of any Aβ component,” said Assistant Professor Jung-A (Alexa) Woo.

BRAIN HEALTH

A February 17, 2020 Technology Networks article highlighted work from researchers at the University of Sydney who found that six months of lifting weights can slow and halt brain degeneration in areas particularly vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease in older adults with MCI. According to the article, “The long-term study found that strength training led to overall benefits to cognitive performance, benefits linked to protection from degeneration in specific subregions of the hippocampus... The hippocampus subregions targeted by the strength training were those especially vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease.”