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CDC Updates Public Data Portal on the Health of Older Adults

By Commentary
Contributed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):   The CDC recently updated the Alzheimer’s Disease and Healthy Aging Data Portal, which provides access to a range of national, regional, and state data on older adults. This resource allows users to examine data on key indicators of health and well-being for older Americans, including caregiving and cognitive decline, by age group, gender, and race/ethnicity. The Portal was updated with 2018 BRFSS data, including data on cognitive decline from 50 states and data on caregivers from 44 states. Portal users can retrieve CDC data by indicator or by geographic…
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WAM Live: Doctor’s Hours today at 3PM PST

By Commentary, Community Events
The doctor is in again! Join us and The Women's Alzheimer's Movement (WAM) for WAM Live: Doctor’s Hours, today at 3pm PST on Instagram LIVE with WAM Scientific Advisor & Director of UCI MIND, Dr. Josh Grill: https://www.instagram.com/womensalzmovement/ Have you ever wanted to know about clinical trials, how to get involved, or what that even means? Do you have a burning question about Alzheimer’s or brain health you want answered? Ask Dr. Grill during this informative and interactive Instagram live.
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CA Department of Aging Survey: COVID 19 Impacts & Recommendation

By Community Events, COVID-19
Contributed by the Long-Term Care and Aging Services Division of the California Department of Aging (CDA)   I would like to share with you the California Department of Aging’s latest opportunity for public engagement with the Master Plan for Aging: the COVID-19 Impacts & Recommendation Survey. COVID-19 has changed the lives of Californians in so many ways.  Millions of people of all ages are staying home and reinventing how to live, work, and connect with family, friends, and communities. Many are experiencing isolation, interruption in services, and loss of income due to the pandemic and resulting recession.  Others cannot stay home, because of essential…
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UCI MIND awarded $14.4 million Alzheimer’s research grant

By Carousel Slider, Commentary, In the News
National Institutes of Health grant helps local researchers continue work on cause and treatment of dementia. The National Institutes of Health has awarded $14.4 million to the UCI MIND institute at UC Irvine to continue its crucial work in the study of Alzheimer’s disease, for which there remains no cure or prevention. UCI MIND, formally known as the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, is one of only 32 Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers around the country funded by the National Institute on Aging, an arm of the NIH. UC Irvine is one of the original half-dozen research centers established…
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Facebook LIVE Q&A: How Does Exercise (Or Lack Thereof) Impact The Brain?

By Commentary, Community Events
About the Speaker: Nicole Berchtold, PhD is an associate project scientist at UCI MIND.  She completed her BS in Biology at Duke University, spent 2 years  in neuroscience research at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and completed her PhD and postdoctoral research at UCI.  She has over 40 publications investigating biological mechanisms by which exercise enhances hippocampal function and learning, and the molecular changes that occur in the brain with aging and Alzheimer’s disease.  She has helped procure multiple grants for over 25 years and is a regular contributor to journal reviews and conferences in her discipline.
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Biogen and Eisai submit aducanumab for FDA approval

By Commentary, In the News
Contributed by Joshua Grill, PhD, Director of UCI MIND This morning (July 8, 2020), Biogen and Eisai announced that the two companies had together completed submission to the FDA for regulatory and marketing approval of aducanumab, the monoclonal antibody against the beta amyloid protein that accumulates in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s disease. We’ve previously written about the unique set of circumstances under which Biogen is submitting their application. Two large Phase 3 clinical trials were halted for futility in 2019, only for later assessments of the study data to lead to the sponsors to conclude that the drug…
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Alzheimer’s biomarkers in Down syndrome parallel late-onset disease

By Carousel Slider, Commentary, In the News
Dr. Elizabeth Head (left) studies Down syndrome and Alzheimer's disease at UCI.   In an accompanying editorial, Elizabeth Head, PhD, of University of California Irvine, and Beau Ances, MD, PhD, of Washington University St Louis, wrote, "Fortea and colleagues noted similarities between biomarkers reflecting Alzheimer disease pathogenesis in individuals with Down syndrome and individuals with late onset and autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease. These results provide strong evidence that studies of people with Down syndrome can inform research on late-onset and autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease." Read more here >
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Neighborhood poverty and Alzheimer’s disease

By Commentary
Contributed by Christian Salazar, PhD, UCI MIND Project Scientist The Neighborhood Atlas: California - 2015 ADI State Rankings While the link between poverty and disease is well documented in health disparities research, a practical way to connect poverty with biological processes has proven to be difficult. Nevertheless, recent advancements like the new publicly-available tool called “The Neighborhood Atlas” has made it easier for health disparities researchers to rank and geographically map neighborhoods according to socioeconomic disadvantage. In a recent JAMA article, researchers linked The Neighborhood Atlas with repositories of brain tissue in a sample of 447 decedents from California and…
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