Hopes and Questions raised by Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi (lecanemab)

The FDA has approved Leqem­bi, the first dis­­ease-mod­­i­­fy­ing treat­ment for ear­­ly-stage Alzheimer’s and a pre­cur­sor con­di­tion, mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment. Medicare has said it will pay for the ther­a­py. Med­ical cen­ters across the coun­try are scram­bling to final­ize poli­cies and pro­ce­dures for pro­vid­ing the med­ica­tion to patients, pos­si­bly by summer’s end or ear­ly autumn. It’s a…

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Growing controversy over role of FDA and Medicare in promoting anti-amyloid drugs given limited benefit, high cost, severe side-effects

The War Over Whether Medicare Should Pay For The New Anti-Alzheimer’s Drugs (Forbes): The pow­er­ful Alzheimer’s Dis­ease lob­by is fight­ing a mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar bat­tle on two fronts. It is qui­et­ly try­ing to lim­it restric­tions the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion puts on the use of new drugs aimed at slow­ing the pro­gres­sion of the brain dis­ease. And…

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News on how the brain changes over time, how to clear foggy brains, how to multitask (or not), and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun brain teas­er to test the lim­its of mul­ti-task­ing. #1. Col­lab­o­ra­tive neu­roimag­ing ini­tia­tive Brain­Chart helps chart how brains change across the lifes­pan. Among the many fas­ci­nat­ing find­ings: “The vol­ume of grey mat­ter (brain cells) increas­es rapid­ly from mid-gestation…

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Geisinger and Eisai to test real-world validity of AI-powered Passive Digital Marker (PDM) in detecting early cognitive impairment and dementia

Research col­lab­o­ra­tion will test nov­el algorithm’s effec­tive­ness on Geisinger data (press release): Geisinger and Eisai Inc. today announced a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort to study the poten­tial effec­tive­ness of an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) tool in the detec­tion of cog­ni­tive impair­ment that could iden­ti­fy demen­tias, includ­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD). If effec­tive, the AI tool could poten­tial­ly be developed…

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