Alzheimers

Fully-automated analysis of voice recordings–from neuropsychological tests–found to help differentiate normal cognition from dementia and mild cognitive impairment

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Cred­it: James Byrne

Voice Record­ings Spot Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment (Med­Page Today):

A machine-learn­ing mod­el iden­ti­fied mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment and demen­tia from dig­i­tal voice record­ings of neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal tests, an ear­ly study showed.

Among 1,084 peo­ple in the Fram­ing­ham Heart Study whose tests were record­ed, the aver­age area under the curve (AUC) reached 92.6% for dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing nor­mal cog­ni­tion from demen­tia, 88.0% for dis­cern­ing nor­mal cog­ni­tion or mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment from demen­tia, and 74.4% for dis­tin­guish­ing nor­mal cog­ni­tion from mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment. [Read more…] about Ful­ly-auto­mat­ed analy­sis of voice recordings–from neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal tests–found to help dif­fer­en­ti­ate nor­mal cog­ni­tion from demen­tia and mild cog­ni­tive impairment

Study finds that cognitive activity in old age may delay the onset of dementia by 5 years

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– Yuji Sakai / Dig­i­talVi­sion / Get­ty Images

Demen­tia Comes 5 Years Lat­er for Some (Med­Page Today):

A cog­ni­tive­ly active lifestyle that involves read­ing and pro­cess­ing infor­ma­tion in old age may delay the onset of demen­tia in Alzheimer’s dis­ease by as much as 5 years, a lon­gi­tu­di­nal study suggested.

Old­er adults who had the high­est lev­el of late-life cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty had a mean onset age of Alzheimer’s demen­tia of 94, report­ed Robert Wil­son, PhD, of Rush Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter in Chica­go, and colleagues.

In con­trast, those with the low­est late-life cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty lev­els devel­oped demen­tia at age 89, they wrote in Neu­rol­o­gy. [Read more…] about Study finds that cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty in old age may delay the onset of demen­tia by 5 years

Study: Over-the-counter “brain enhancement” supplements in the US found both to a) contain multiple unapproved drugs and b) lack some ingredients listed on the label

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Study: Your Brain Sup­ple­ments Could Con­tain Dan­ger­ous, Ille­gal Ingre­di­ents (Being Patient):

Brain sup­ple­ments that claim to boost cog­ni­tive func­tion are increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar, grow­ing from a $4 bil­lion indus­try of about 4,000 unique prod­ucts to a $40 bil­lion indus­try with as many as 80,000 dif­fer­ent prod­ucts on the mar­ket. [Read more…] about Study: Over-the-counter “brain enhance­ment” sup­ple­ments in the US found both to a) con­tain mul­ti­ple unap­proved drugs and b) lack some ingre­di­ents list­ed on the label

Study: Moderate lifetime drinking may lead to lower Alzheimer-related beta amyloid deposits in the brain

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Mod­er­ate drink­ing tied to low­er lev­els of Alzheimer’s brain pro­tein (Busi­ness Standard):

“Kore­an researchers stud­ied 414 men and women, aver­age age 71, who were free of demen­tia or alco­hol-relat­ed dis­or­ders. All under­went phys­i­cal exams, tests of men­tal acu­ity, and positron emis­sion tomog­ra­phy (PET) and mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing (MRI) scans. They were care­ful­ly inter­viewed about their drink­ing habits.

The study, in PLOS Med­i­cine, mea­sured drink­ing in “stan­dard drinks” — 12 ounces of beer, five ounces of wine, or one-and-a-half ounces of hard liquor. Com­pared with abstain­ers, those who drank one to 13 stan­dard drinks a week had a 66 per cent low­er rate of beta amy­loid deposits in their brains. [Read more…] about Study: Mod­er­ate life­time drink­ing may lead to low­er Alzheimer-relat­ed beta amy­loid deposits in the brain

The NIH starts spending $1.5 billion in new Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neuro-technologies (BRAIN) projects

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NIH Starts to Spend $4.8 Bil­lion in “Extra” Cures Drug Research Mon­ey (P&T Community):

“The Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health (NIH) launched 110 new brain research projects in the fis­cal year end­ing last Sep­tem­ber (2017) with the first por­tion of the $1.5 bil­lion over 10 years it will hope­ful­ly receive from the 21st Cen­tu­ry Cures Act, which spread a total of $4.8 bil­lion over four NIH pro­grams. That is mon­ey over and above the NIH annu­al appro­pri­a­tion from Con­gress. The oth­er three “Inno­va­tion Funds” are: Pre­ci­sion Med­i­cine, Can­cer Moon­shot, and Regen­er­a­tive Medicine.

The $1.5 bil­lion in new Brain Research through Advanc­ing Inno­v­a­tive Neu­ro-tech­nolo­gies (BRAIN) research mon­ey seems par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant giv­en the announce­ment in Jan­u­ary that Pfiz­er was end­ing its Alzheimer’s research pro­gram [Read more…] about The NIH starts spend­ing $1.5 bil­lion in new Brain Research through Advanc­ing Inno­v­a­tive Neu­ro-tech­nolo­gies (BRAIN) projects

With pharma exiting Alzheimer’s research, new hope (and urgency) seen in the combination of brain training and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

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What does the future hold for the war on Alzheimer’s? (The Globe and Mail):

“After spend­ing huge sums on clin­i­cal trails in recent years, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try has failed to find a drug that can halt the mind-rob­bing dis­ease. And this month, Pfiz­er announced it is end­ing its Alzheimer’s research, although oth­er com­pa­nies haven’t thrown in the tow­el yet. But oth­er pre­ven­tion mea­sures are being explored.

Sev­er­al Toron­to hos­pi­tals are involved in an ambi­tious $10-mil­lion, five-year study to deter­mine whether a com­bi­na­tion of cog­ni­tive reme­di­a­tion – men­tal exer­cis­es – plus elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tion of the brain can delay [Read more…] about With phar­ma exit­ing Alzheimer’s research, new hope (and urgency) seen in the com­bi­na­tion of brain train­ing and tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS)