The Head lab celebrating World Down Syndrome Day with their crazy socks! Some of those featured include: Liz Head Lorena Sordo Elizabeth Andrews Jeremy Rouanet Cherie Lepe Lisi Flores-Aguilar Jesse Pascual Learn more about Down syndrome and Alzheimer's disease at https://sites.mind.uci.edu/headlab
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Message from the Director Dear Friends of UCI MIND, The COVID-19 surge caused by the Omicron variant has produced unwanted challenges for our research. Yet, our investigators remain unrelenting and highly successful in their work. Dr. Ira Lott received the international Trisomy 21 Research Society Montserrat Trueta Award (page 1). Dr. Claudia Kawas received the UCI Senate Better World Award (page 5). We honored Bob and Virginia Naeve with our UCI MIND Award, though we were unable to hold our A December to Remember Gala, to deliver it with the pomp and circumstance they deserve (page 7). Cherry Justice has…
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David Sultzer, MD, Professor, Psychiatry & Human Behavior, School of Medicine eturbonews: The Institute for Molecular Medicine (IMM), a non-profit organization dedicated to basic and translational molecular research to develop safe, effective vaccines against #Alzheimers disease and other #neurodegenerative disorders, today announced that it was awarded a $12 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support clinical trials of its beta-#amyloid (Aβ) vaccines based on DNA (AV-1959D) and recombinant protein (AV-1959R) for the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In collaboration with the @ucirvine (Principal Investigator, David Sultzer, M.D.)…
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Managed Healthcare Executive - March 17, 2022 According to the CDC, about 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease …. “These numbers are projected to increase because elderly individuals are the fastest-growing segment in the United States,” says Claudia H. Kawas, M.D., a professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. … The things known about dementia risk that are potentially modifiable are all related to general health and maintenance of health, says Kawas, noting the association between control of high blood pressure and cholesterol levels and a lower risk of dementia.
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UCI MIND Director Dr. Josh Grill is giving a talk on Zoom about Dementia Care, hosted by Happy 50 Plus, on March 24, 2022 from 4-5:30 PM. He will be speaking on "Effective Diagnosis and Treatment for Alzheimer's, and What's New on the Horizon." This event will be in English with Mandarin Chinese translation. The talk is free to join, but pre-registration is required. Zoom Registration link: bit.ly/DementiaCare0324 Please see the flyer below for information regarding this upcoming event.
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90+ Study: Learning from the oldest-old Researchers can learn a lot about how Alzheimer’s develops by studying people at increased risk. People older than age 90, or the oldest-old, are the fastest growing segment of the population in the United States and most of the world and have the highest rates of dementia. Remarkably, the oldest-old also have the highest rate of cognitive resilience and somehow avoid developing dementia despite having brain pathologies. This populations’ high rates of dementia, yet also resilience, make it an optimal group to study to understand the underlying causes of dementia. The 90+ Study, launched in…
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This International Women's Day, UCI MIND remains committed to understanding why almost two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer's are women. Research conducted in partnership with Maria Shriver’s Women's Alzheimer's Movement, whose organization has awarded $500,000 to UCI MIND since its launch in 2017, seeks to answer that question. Show your support by advocating, donating, and participating in research today!
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The Winter 2022 edition of UCI Magazine features UCI MIND researchers, including David Sultzer, MD, Michael Yassa, PhD, and more! Read the latest edition of UCI Magazine here >
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Contributed by Elizabeth Head, Josh Grill, and Ira Lott A diagram depicting trisomy-21 - Source: LuMIND People with Down syndrome are at high risk for developing Alzheimer disease beginning after the age of 40 years. This is due, in part, to the extra copy of chromosome 21, which contains the amyloid precursor protein gene and leads to higher production of beta-amyloid with age. Indeed, there is evidence that the overproduction of amyloid in Down syndrome is a strong driver of Alzheimer disease, which is why treatments targeting beta-amyloid could be impactful for this group of adults. In our current exciting…
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Discover Magazine: Aging dogs can develop canine cognitive dysfunction (CCD), sometimes known as “doggie dementia.” The brains of dogs with CCD show only amyloid beta plaques, not tau tangles, but their symptoms are similar to the symptoms of dementia in humans, explains Elizabeth Head, director of the graduate program in experimental pathology at the University of California, Irvine. “They’ll forget how to signal that they need to go out,” Head says. “In the more severe stages of the disease, they can become incontinent and may not recognize people.” She points out that because dogs live closely with humans, any behavioral changes…
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