User:K.Stember

 Alzheimer's Disease Current Research  

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) research has several goals. One goals is to find preventative measures to decrease memory impairment in individuals affected by AD. Another goal is to find ways of detecting dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (DAT) at its earliest stages to prevent further deterioration with the disease. A third research goal is to determine which areas of the brain and memory are affected by the disease so therapies can target those areas. Many studies are being conducted in attempt to achieve all of these goals.

Areas of the Brain Most Affected by Alzheimer's Disease

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.disaboomlive.com/Galleries/storage/1000.14569.25221.Brain-Diagram-Alzheimers.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.disaboomlive.com/photos/timpoindexter/picture25221.aspx&h=220&w=275&sz=18&tbnid=lW8o3d9nBGpnvM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=114&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dalzheimers%2Bbrain&usg=__OQcs2Xq4YabnPOCe_avCqL0Nusc=&sa=X&ei=JAhOTJGGCc2gnQeh1aT-Aw&ved=0CCQQ9QEwAg

'''Moon et. al Perinatal Choline Supplementation Improves Cognitive Functioning and Emotion Regulation in the Ts65Dn Mouse Model of Down Syndrome'''

This study increases choline intake of pregnant and lactating women in order to “significantly lessen the cognitive and affective dysfunction in offspring…as well as…reduce the offspring’s risk of aging-related cognitive decline, including that caused by AD.” This study uses the Ts65Dn mouse model which exhibits key features of both Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease. One features they exhibit is early degeneration of cholinergic basal forebrain (CBF) neurons which affect attention and explicit memory. The study uses three groups of mice; one group of Ts65Dn mice with choline supplementation to the pregnant mothers, one Ts65Dn group without choline supplementation to the mothers, and one group of mice without the defect. The different groups were tested using various attention tasks and individual performance was assessed. There were clear improvements in the mice with perinatal choline supplementation, although they did not perform as well as the mice without defect. This study suggests that higher levels of choline during pregnancy may improve brain development by combating the degeneration of CBF neurons that occur in Alzheimer’s disease.

'''Razani et. al Semantic Networks for Odors and Colors in Alzheimer’s Disease'''

This study looks at a breakdown in the semantic network that is caused by Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers used tests in which patients match odors and colors with their written name labels to further investigate how the semantic networks in the brain are affected by AD. This study used two groups of patients; one consisting of 12 subjects with probable Alzheimer’s disease and the other consisting of 12 normal elderly controls of similar gender and age. The study found that the control patients produced connections between the odors that were based on common attributes shared among the odors. Patients with AD generated disorganized groupings with loose associations. The inability of patients affected with Alzheimer’s disease to utilize more abstract groupings of the odors suggests a problem with stored semantic memory. These findings point to a problem in the mesial temporal lobe of the brain that may lead to some of the deficits caused by Alzheimer’s disease. This research provides a specific location of the brain that is targeted by AD.

'''Hutchison et. al Predicting Conversion to Dementia of the Alzheimer’s Type in a Healthy Control Sample: The Power of Errors in Stroop Color Naming'''

This study analyzes the ability of the Stroop Color Naming test to predict patient conversion to dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (DAT). Finding ways to predict the onset of the disease allows for early intervention using therapies aimed at combating the effects of the disease and allows for an understanding of what constitutes healthy aging versus decline as the result of disease. This study found that the error rate in the Stroop task, a very well studied attentional task that shows changes in the earliest stages of AD, appears to be sensitive to DAT conversion and has not been measured in previous studies. Researchers assessed a group of 47 individuals using the Stroop task at time A and time B to see what predicted development of DAT. The study found that the strongest difference in all measures was in the error rates in the Stroop task, and that reaction times are a useful discriminator between converters and non-converters to DAT. These findings will allow decline in mental functioning due to Alzheimer’s disease to be detected at the earliest stages.

Links to Other Current Studies Involving Alzheimer's Disease:

Tse et. al The Utility of Placing Recollection in Opposition to Familiarity in Early Discrimination of Healthy Aging and Very Mind Dementia of the Alzheimer's Type

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.ilsprod.lib.neu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&hid=101&sid=5eb4dd83-acdd-47b6-bef3-fa6be70e3807%40sessionmgr111

Duchek et. al The Utility of Intraindividual Variability in Selective Attention Tasks as an Early Marker for Alzheimer's Disease

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.ilsprod.lib.neu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&hid=101&sid=c2b2a70c-d953-4267-ab35-ce6178369f0f%40sessionmgr111

Goodkind et. al Emotion Regulation Deficits in Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration and Alzheimer's Disease

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.ilsprod.lib.neu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&hid=101&sid=1342eafa-a137-4e22-a439-e621ab6d5eb9%40sessionmgr112

References