MUST READS

A May 22, 2016 USA Today article explored the impact of electing a baby boomer into the White House. According to the article, “Does the candidates’ generation suggest traits that could shape a presidency? Possibly the Boomer generation’s most striking characteristic is its own internal division. “It was always at war with itself," says Gillon, “and the cultural civil war of the ‘60s is still playing out in the presidential election." That means more talk about social issues, which tend to defy compromise and make people mad. The irony is that Boomers, about 10,000 of whom turn 70 each day, are affected by other issues — the shortfall in retirement savings, the rising incidence of Alzheimer’s — that could get lost in the shuffle, says Ken Dychtwald, an expert on generational change.”

A May 22, 2016 Boston Herald article profiled an Alzheimer’s researcher Dorene Rentz and the role of her husband in a “pioneering Alzheimer’s study.” According to the article, “Dorene Rentz, one of the local neuropsychologists behind a pioneering Alzheimer’s study, spends her days searching for answers in the mysterious plaques that invade the brains of those suffering from the incurable disease. And Rentz’s search will take on a new sense of urgency in the coming months, as the study gains a key participant: her husband…Rentz, co-director of the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the director of neuropsychology at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, helps run the A4 study — a trial that aims to stave off the disease by clearing out buildup in the brain that’s believed to emerge before symptoms occur.”

A May 22, 2016 Newsweek article reported on the “bacterial links to the brain’s decline.” According to the article, “Gale’s team found only fairly small deficits in cognition connected to infection. But other researchers, like Ruth Itzhaki, professor emeritus of molecular neurobiology at Britain’s University of Manchester, believe microbes may play an outsized role in one of the most devastating neurodegenerative disorders around: Alzheimer’s disease, which afflicted 47 million people worldwide in 2015. Last March, Itzhaki and a globe-spanning group of researchers penned an editorial in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, imploring the scientific community to more seriously pursue a proposed link between Alzheimer’s and particular germs, namely herpes simplex virus Type 1 (HSV-1), Chlamydia pneumoniae and spirochetes—a diverse group of bacteria that include those responsible for syphilis and Lyme disease. The unusually direct plea, for scientists at least, was the culmination of decades of frustration.”

A May 20, 2016 Eurekalert.org article reported that “researchers propose[d] a new framework for diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease, namely Spherical Brain Mapping.” According to the article, “In this article we propose a new framework for dementia diagnosis, namely Spherical Brain Mapping (SBM) that performs a projection of three-dimensional Magnetic Resonance (MR) brain images onto two-dimensional maps revealing statistical characteristics of the tissue…This framework achieves a performance up to 91% accuracy in a differential diagnosis involving Alzheimer-affected subjects versus controls belonging to the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI).”

NOTABLE LOSSES

A May 20, 2016 ABC News article reported that civil rights activist and Carter administration official Patricia Derian died of Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 86. According to President Jimmy Carter, “She was amazing…I’ve had a fairly active life and have known a lot of people. But I've never known anyone as clear-eyed, as honored, as tough, as empathetic and as willing to face evil than Patt. She was the most extraordinary human being that I've ever known."

A May 19, 2016 Rolling Stone article reported that “John Berry, an original member of hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, died Thursday morning.” According to the article, “John Berry III, Berry’s father, confirmed his deathThursday afternoon to Rolling Stone. He said his son suffered from frontal lobe dementia, which had worsened in recent months.”

UPCOMING WEBINARS 

On June 22, 2016 the Global Council on Alzheimer’s Disease (GCAD) and Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals, Inc. are hosting a summer webinar series, and we would like to invite you to join us. For the second webinar in this series, we will share insights from a groundbreaking collaboration between the oncologist Dr. Harold Freeman and experts in Alzheimer’s, including Dr. Richard Stefanacci and Ruth Gay. Sign up here.