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In a blunt rejection of current norms, two leaders of biomarker disclosure research argue research participants should have the opportunity to know whether they have biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease . Biomarkers, or biological indicators of a disease, are essential to the study and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and other diseases that cause dementia. Clinicians use imaging such as MRI and PET scans to measure biomarkers and make accurate diagnoses. Blood tests are fast becoming available too. The tests also allow researchers to develop targeted drug therapies. But in both clinical care and research, biomarker results are infrequently disclosed. Insurers typically do…

Hope Dies Last – Alzheimer’s: A Journey of Lost Memories, comes out TODAY at 3:30pm! Check out this clip of UCI MIND Director, Joshua Grill, Ph.D. discussing the impacts of Alzheimer’s disease on Orange County residents. Tune in today at 3:30pm on KDOCTV for the full program!

After decades of research into the causes and treatment of Parkinson’s disease, UCI Health neurologist Dr. Claire Henchcliffe is hopeful that a new cell therapy can finally bring meaningful relief to patients with the progressive neurodegenerative movement disorder. A national expert on Parkinson’s disease, she is one of a small group of U.S. researchers conducting a first-in-human clinical trial of transplanted stem cells engineered to replace dopamine-producing neurons that are destroyed by the debilitating and incurable condition. As the brain loses its ability to produce the potent neurotransmitting chemical, that leads to the tremors, stiffness, slowness and lack of coordination seen in Parkinson’s patients. The…

The Collaborative Approach for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Research and Education (CARE): A recruitment registry for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, aging, and caregiver-related research

Blood pressure variability is an emerging risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia, but mechanisms remain unclear. The current study examined whether visit-to-visit blood pressure variability is related to CSF Alzheimer’s disease biomarker levels over time, and whether associations differed by APOE ϵ4 carrier status.

Image Courtesy: AARP Through new developments in Alzheimer’s research, UCI scientists have uncovered evidence of P522R, a particular gene mutation that may aid in minimizing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive disorder that slowly deteriorates memory and thinking skills in the brain, eventually leading to a loss in the ability to complete simple tasks such as  facilitating a conversation or responding to a stimulus in the environment. With the discovery of the disease in 1906 by Dr. Alois Alzheimer, its causes today are focused on two suspects: plaques and tangles in proteins. Beta-amyloid, fragments of…

The Washington Post – April 7, 2022 The FDA approval of Aduhelm ignited a raging debate, with many doctors saying they would not prescribe the drug and several insurers declining to pay for it. Yet even with the uncertainty surrounding the drug, said Elizabeth Head, [professor of pathology], at the University of California, Irvine, it is understandable why some families, especially those in which a loved one with Down syndrome faces an all but certain fate, “might believe doing something is better than doing nothing.”

“Much of neuroscience and study of brain diseases has focused on the brain’s neurons. This study highlights that in addition to neurons, other brain cells, and especially immune cells, play crucial roles in brain health and disease,” said Tallie Z. Baram, distinguished professor in the Departments of Anatomy & Neurobiology, Pediatrics, Neurology, and Physiology & Biophysics at the UCI School of Medicine. “Neuroimmune interactions are a novel, important avenue to understanding and treating several brain disorders and mental illness and have been linked by other UCI researchers to Alzheimer’s disease.”

First author Gianna Fote was recently interviewed by the Journal of Cell Science for a newly-published paper. She provided commentary on her team’s new findings for UCI MIND: “In our recently published work we studied intracellular trafficking of Apolipoprotein E (APOE), a lipid-carrying protein. The APOE4 isoform of this protein is the biggest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. We found that that APOE can be degraded by a process called autophagy, a process in which cellular waste is transported to an acidic organelle called the lysosome. The APOE4 isoform accumulates in the lysosome and causes increased induction of…

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.) and @uscedu (Principal Investigator, Lon Schneider, M.D.), IMM (Principal Investigator and…

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.

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…

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 >

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, [professor of medicine and] 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…

Contributed by Hayk Davtyan, Ph.D. and Christel Claes, Ph.D. While the word “mutation” may conjure up alarming notions, a mutation in brain immune cells serves a positive role in protecting people against Alzheimer’s disease. Now UCI MIND biologists have discovered the mechanisms behind this crucial process. Their paper appears in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia. The investigation centered on a variant of the PLCG2 gene, which makes the instructions for producing an enzyme important to brain immune cells called microglia. “Recently the mutation, which is known as P522R, was shown to lower the risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s,” said Hayk…

Renewal recognizes UCI’s dedication to patient care and active engagement in research to develop new therapeutic approaches February 15, 2022 “Renewal of certification as a Huntington’s Disease Society of America Center of Excellence is very exciting, as this will help us expand our patient care and research. HD was one of the first diseases for which a genetic cause was determined and serves as a paradigm for research into other such diseases,” says Leslie Thompson, Ph.D., Donald Bren and Chancellor’s professor in the departments of psychiatry and human behavior and biological chemistry at the UCI School of Medicine. UCI has…

UCI MIND #InTheNews: Forbes: “According to UCI, the new center will involve collaborations across seven areas: SMART (statistics, machine learning-artificial intelligence) designs software to integrate and analyze health records, molecular data, and observation. This unit will be led by Daniel Gillen, professor and chair of statistics, and Zhaoxia Yu, associate professor of statistics… Precision omics generates, analyzes, and administers genomic, proteomic, and chemical data. It’s led by Suzanne Sandmeyer, professor of biological chemistry, and Leslie Thompson, the Donald Bren and Chancellor’s Professor of psychiatry & human behavior at UCI… The institute will take special aim at diseases that heretofore have lacked effective treatments. “For many…

UCI MIND #InTheNews   @Seniors Matter – Feb. 9, 2022 “People who engaged in more healthy behaviors had a lower risk than people with fewer because all of these things matter, and when it comes to brain-healthy behaviors, more is more!” said Joshua Grill, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California, Irvine. “So, we should all try to adopt as many brain-healthy behaviors as we can.”

Our memories are imperfect treasures – dear to our hearts, but not necessarily accurate snapshots of reality. CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks to neurobiologist Michael Yassa about how memories are stored in the brain, why we forget, and what we’ve gotten wrong about how it’s supposed to work. To help understand the mechanisms of memory, we meet a woman who remembers absolutely everything… and a man who can’t even recall what he ate for breakfast. Plus, actionable tips for how we can keep our memories sharp at any age.

Originally posted on The Company of Biologists “First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers.” UCI MIND trainee Gianna Fote was recently selected for an interview to discuss her latest publication. Read the full interview here, and learn about her publication here.

As a child in the early 1980s, I was enamored with My Little Pony, the colorful plastic horse figurines with long manes. I also had the brand’s Show Stable, which was parked in our TV room and filled with my beloved ponies. But as I progressed through grade school, I eventually packed up my stable and forgot about the toys I once loved.   By late 2003, I hadn’t thought about my ponies for over 15 years. Then, VH1 ran a 1980s nostalgia show in which celebrities reminisced about bygone pop culture. An actress held up a My Little Pony figurine…

Overactivity in the hippocampus, likely tied to lack of inhibition, underlies some age-related cognitive decline. Targeting those circuits shows early promise in slowing memory loss. By Emily Singer December 9, 2021 As we get older, our memory begins to fail in predictable ways. We’re more likely to confuse similar memories, for example, forgetting whether it was little Tim or Samantha who threw the turkey leg across the room at Thanksgiving, and whether that happened the same year the dog snatched the sweet potato pie. In experiments in the lab, old people can easily remember very different objects but have a…

UCI MIND In The News: Dec 3 is International Day of Persons with Disabilities. So congratulations to Dr. Elizabeth Head of University of California, Irvine — Recognized as an Expertscape World Expert in Intellectual Disability: https://expertscape.com/ex/intellectual+disability

While aging is typically associated with cognitive decline, some individuals are able to diverge from the characteristic downward slope and maintain very high levels of cognitive performance. Prior studies have found that cortical thickness in the cingulate cortex, a region involved in information processing, memory, and attention, distinguish those with exceptional cognitive abilities when compared to their cognitively more typical elderly peers. Others major areas outside of the cingulate, such as the prefrontal cortex and insula, are also key in successful aging well into late age, suggesting that structural properties across a wide range of areas may better explain differences…

A blood test may be able to identify individuals at increased risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease symptoms, according to research presented at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease conference. The results came as part of the AHEAD study. Joshua D. Grill “The goal of this study is to stop Alzheimer’s disease before it begins — delaying or preventing symptoms in people at increased biological risk,” Joshua D. Grill, PhD, recruitment unit co-chair for the Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials Consortium, which helps oversee the AHEAD Study Recruitment and Retention Working Group, told Healio Psychiatry. “The latest advance is to use a blood test to improve the…

Overall, this nice series of experiments identifies yet another component of the sleep/wake regulatory system—the TRN—that is disrupted by Aβ and degenerated in AD. It is interesting that stimulating the TRN can impact Aβ. It is unlikely, however, that the TRN is the only stimulation target necessary, and that stimulating it would address all the sleep disruptions caused by Aβ and also tau pathology. AD pathophysiology impacts multiple different systems regulating sleep, including brainstem and hypothalamic nuclei, cortical nodes regulating slow wave expression, and even the hippocampus that regulates ripples, and coupling of slow waves, sleep spindles, and ripples. This…

Certain antihypertensive medications, particularly diuretics, are linked to lower Alzheimer’s disease neuropathology (ADNP) and other brain disease processes, new research shows.

The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement – WAM spoke to University of California, Irvine’s Dr. Elizabeth Head about her latest research into the link between #Alzheimers and #DownSyndrome. Learn more about her study funded through the UCI MIND WAM Initiative. WAM: Why are we studying Alzheimer’s disease in people with Down syndrome? Is there a link? Dr. Head: Within the Down syndrome population, 95% of people have a full extra copy of chromosome 21. This chromosome contains a gene that is responsible for making the beta-amyloid protein that clumps together to form amyloid plaques in the brain, which is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s…

Neuroscientists have reportedly found how associative memories are made. The ability to be able to remember relationships that are made between unrelated items like odor and location, songs and events, is known as associative memory. The University of California, Irvine’s neuroscientists, have reportedly discovered some specific types of neurons within the brain’s memory center that are responsible for acquiring brand new associative memories. The findings of the study were reportedly published in the journal Nature, as also seen in news-medical.net. Psychologists reportedly started studying associative memory as early as the 1800s. Scientists now agree that the structures that are responsible…

The linked editorial from JAMA Neurology cites IMPACT-AD, the course co-led by UCI MIND, and work by The 90+ Study investigators, Maria Corrada, ScM, ScD and Claudia Kawas, MD. The systematic review by Mooldijk et al1 summarizes multiple areas in which the field of dementia research can improve clinical studies. Our Editorial will focus on ethnic and racial diversity (primarily in the US) and on age differences noted in the systematic review between population-based cohorts and clinical cohorts. We also share new and ongoing efforts in this area from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the broader National Institutes of…

❓How will #aducanumab’s approval influence people’s willingness to join, and stay in, future Alzheimer’s disease #clinicaltrials? UCI MIND Director Joshua Grill, PhD was recently quoted by Alzforum discussing this topic.   Read more about UCI MIND #InTheNews: https://www.alzforum.org/news/conference-coverage/aduhelm-approval-reverberates-through-research

NIA-supported scientists have developed a new mouse model that produces a form of the human beta-amyloid protein, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. An important research tool, mouse models enable the exploration of genetic, environmental, and behavioral aspects of Alzheimer’s, as well as make it possible to test drug candidates before human studies. The new mouse model, which was reported in a recent article in Nature Communications, can be used by other scientists to advance Alzheimer’s research. Model Organism Development and Evaluation for Late-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease (MODEL-AD) MODEL-AD consortium Many factors, including gene changes, the aging process, and conditions in the…

UCI MIND professor, David Sultzer, MD, and other investigators show a clinical benefit of an investigational antipsychotic drug, pimavanserin in reducing behavioral symptoms related to Alzheimer’s disease.

Contributed by Joshua Grill, PhD and Jason Karlawish, MD UCI MIND Director Joshua Grill, PhD co-authored an article in Nature Reviews Neurology about the FDA’s decision on Aduhelm. Read more on this below: Since the FDA approved Aduhelm (aducanumab) on June 7, there has been considerable conversation, debate, and even backlash about the decision. It may seem difficult to keep up. Here is a recap of some of the most recent important events. The FDA granted Aduhelm what is known as “accelerated approval.” This means that the approval did not indicate that the drug has been adequately shown to benefit…

UCI School of Biological Sciences Dean Frank LaFerla is co-senior author of a study involving a new genetically engineered mouse model that, unlike its predecessors, is based on the most common form of Alzheimer’s disease. This could help lead to major strides in the fight to end this deadly disease! Dean LaFerla discusses his findings in a new podcast: https://www.bio.uci.edu/frank-laferla-podcast/

Contributed by Vivek Swarup, PhD The brain is made up of billions of cells that are tightly coordinated in complex neural circuitry and are ultimately responsible for manifesting our memories, emotions, and personalities: the very essence of being human. Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is one of the most prevalent neurodegenerative disorders worldwide and results in cognitive decline and memory loss, and we presently do not have effective treatments for AD. There is a pressing need to deepen our understanding of AD, and by studying how individual cells are changing in disease, or identifying those that are resilient to such changes, we…

A crucial, overlooked question on the new Alzheimer’s drug: When should patients stop taking it? STAT News – June 24, 2021 “When we enroll families in studies of treatments like aducanumab, we try to educate them that they should not expect large improvements in cognition or function,” Joshua Grill, director of the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders at the University of California, Irvine, said in an email to STAT. The drug can’t stop disease progression, only potentially slow it, a change that he warns would likely be imperceptible. “If we can’t expect families to know if the drug…

People taking drugs that cross the blood-brain barrier experienced less cognitive decline June 21, 2021 The research conducted by Daniel Nation, UCI associate professor of psychological science, and Jean Ho, a postdoctoral scholar at the UCI Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, included more than 12,800 people over the age of 50 in 14 separate studies carried out across six countries. Steve Zylius / UCI Irvine, Calif., June  21, 2021 — A large-scale meta-analysis led by University of California, Irvine researchers provides the strongest evidence yet of which blood pressure medications help slow memory loss in older adults: those that can…

“My greatest concern is around people with families with Alzheimer’s disease,” said Joshua D. Grill, an Alzheimer’s researcher at the University of California at Irvine. “Few can afford the financial burden in the first place, let alone the additional costs of Aduhelm.” He said the cost of an amyloid PET scan was at least $5,000. “Doctors, families, even we researchers need more guidance,” Grill said. Spinal taps offer a more affordable way of determining amyloid levels, but some patients shy away from them.

KATU News: “We all have to do more because this is about the most important medical problem we face as a society today,” said Dr. Josh Grill, a member of the AHEAD Study leadership team and director of the UC Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders. Grill said his AHEAD Study team is testing a new investigational treatment, examining whether they can slow slow or stop the earliest brain changes due to Alzheimer’s disease in people with a higher risk of developing the disease later in life. The team is seeking volunteers on its website: https://www.aheadstudy.org/ “All research…

MarketWatch As we age, our already limited attention span shrinks even more. So it takes extra discipline for seniors to stay curious. … Craig Stark, [professor of neurobiology and behavior], a memory researcher at University of California, Irvine, urges people who want to stay mentally sharp to “feed your brain novel information.” Curiosity can provide the impetus to gather that new information.

UCI MIND Faculty Member Christine Gall, PhD, a neuroscientist and professor of anatomy and neurobiology at UC Irvine’s School of Medicine, explains that our brains contain specialized cells, or neurons, that are responsible for sending and receiving information. Much like a circuit board in a computer, our brains create networks of neurons that transmit electrical activity when we engage in just about anything. These charges, AKA synapses, are critical for learning and memory.

Dr. Steven Tam, together with colleagues in the UCI School of Medicine’s Division of Geriatric Medicine & Gerontology at UC Irvine and Alzheimer’s Orange County are leading the effort to provide more accurate information and better resources to patients with AD and their caregivers.  To learn more, click here.                

An accompanying editorial in JAMA Neurology noted that the study apparently is the first to focus on disparities related to “time to diagnosis and comprehensiveness of evaluation” of dementia. Claudia Kawas, M.D., a [professor], geriatric neurologist and researcher at the University of California, Irvine, and other authors of the editorial … point to the need for more diversity in dementia research — particularly as the aging U.S. population grows more diverse.