Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, JAMA, UC Davis / 25.03.2024

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Charles DeCarli, MD, FAAN, FAHA Victor and Genevieve Orsi Chair in Alzheimer's Research Distinguished Professor of Neurology Director, Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and Imaging of Dementia and Aging (IDeA) Laboratory Department of Neurology and Center for Neuroscience University of California at Davis Sacramento, CA  95817   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The overall health of the U.S. population has improved dramatically over the last 100 years, Individuals are also living longer resulting in an increasing percentage of the population at risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).  Recent data from the Framingham Heart study, however, finds that dementia incidence may be declining.  While many factors such as greater educational achievement and medical management of vascular risk factors may explain part of this effect, early life environmental differences also likely contribute. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Infections, JAMA, Multiple Sclerosis, Neurological Disorders / 19.03.2024

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Marianna Cortese, MD, PhD Senior Research ScientistDepartment of Nutrition Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public HealthBoston, MA 02115   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: In a study published in Science in 2022, we reported compelling evidence that infection with the Epstein-Barr virus is the leading cause of Multiple Sclerosis. This is a follow-up study to investigate more in depth whether the antibody response to EBV is distinct in individuals with MS compared to individuals without MS and whether there is a part of EBV that the immune response is particularly targeting. For this purpose we assessed the immune response to all protein parts (peptides) of EBV and their association with MS. Previous studies could only look at parts of EBV and this is the first study looking at all EBV peptides. Antibodies to EBV (especially to a protein called EBNA1) are known to be overall higher in individuals with MS, so we also tested whether immune response overall or the immune response to specific EBV protein parts was more important. If the immune response to a specific EBV protein part (peptide) would be standing out or distinguishing individuals with MS, we hypothesized, it could point to a specific mechanism of how EBV may cause MS, i.e. it could point for example towards “molecular mimicry”, which is when antibodies targeting a pathogen start targeting a body-own structure (for example in the brain) which resembles the protein parts of the pathogen. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Genetic Research, JAMA, Stanford / 07.11.2023

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael E. Belloy, PhD Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences Stanford University, Stanford, California MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Apolipoprotein E (APOE)*2 and APOE*4 are, respectively, the strongest protective and risk-increasing, genetic variants for late-onset Alzheimer disease. As such, one’s APOE genotype is highly relevant towards clinical trial design and Alzheimer’s disease research. However, most insights so far are focused on the associations of these APOE genotypes with Alzheimer’s disease risk in non-Hispanic white individuals. One important aspect of our work is that we really increased sample sizes for non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and East Asian individuals, so that we now have better understanding of the associations of APOE genotypes with Alzheimer’s disease risk in these groups. In complement, we also did the largest investigation to date on the role of ancestry on the associations of APOE genotypes with Alzheimer’s disease risk. The scale of our study was thus a critical factor in generating novel insights. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Biomarkers, JAMA, MRI / 22.05.2023

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ruben Smith MD, PhD Associate professor at Clinical Memory Research Division of Neurology Lund University   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Since a few years it has become possible to visualize tau pathology in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) using positron emission tomography (PET). The tau-PET radiotracer Flortaucipir (Tauvid) was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration as an AD diagnostic tool. Since PET imaging is costly and exposes the patient to radioactivity we wanted to study the added clinical value of tau-PET in the diagnostic work-up of patients with cognitive symptoms, before widespread implementation in clinical practice. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Gender Differences, JAMA, Menopause / 03.04.2023

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rachel Buckley, PhD ​Assistant Professor Department of Neurology Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: While a fair amount of studies have focused on the effects of menopause and hormone therapy on risk of dementia, far fewer studies have tested their association with the biology of Alzheimer’s disease, namely amyloid and tau. This is critical to know given that it still remains unclear what might be the driving mechanism of the menopause transition on risk for dementia. This is what our study set out to investigate. This study is one of the first to report a link between women’s age at menopause and tau in the brain, which we measured with positron emission tomography neuroimaging. We found that in multiple areas of the brain that tend to be most likely to show higher tau in women than men, women with earlier age at menopause and elevated levels of amyloid showed higher levels of tau than those who reported an average age at menopause (~50 years in the United States). Women who reported premature menopause (<40 years at menopause onset) exhibited a much higher risk of tau in the brain. This supports the notion that longer exposure to estrogen throughout life might be protective against Alzheimer’s disease. (more…)
Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, JAMA / 13.04.2022

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Cheng-Ying Ho, MD, PhD Associate Professor Department of Pathology Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com:  What is the background for this study?  Response: Smell loss is one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19 infection. The mechanism of COVID-19-related smell loss is unclear. Previous studies mainly focused on the effect of the viral infection on the lining of the nasal cavity. We went a step beyond to examine the olfactory bulb, a region that transmits smell-related signals to the brain.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brain Injury, Exercise - Fitness / 04.08.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Willie Stewart, MBChB, PhD, DipFMS, FRCPath, FRCP Edin Consultant Neuropathologist Honorary Professor Department of Neuropathology Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow, UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: There is concern over the association between participation in contact sports and later life risk of dementia and associated neurodegenerative disease. Much of this comes from observations of a specific form of neurodegenerative pathology - chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)- linked to history of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and repetitive head impacts in autopsy studies of relatively small numbers of former athletes, including boxers and soccer players. Nevertheless, although this brain injury linked pathology is described, surprisingly little is known about what this might mean for later life health, specifically risk of dementia. In a previous study published from our programme of research looking at "Football's Influence on Lifelong health and Dementia risk' (the FIELD Study), we demonstrated that former professional soccer players had an approximately three-and-a-half-fold higher mortality from neurodegenerative disease than matched general population controls. However, these mortality data did not allow us to consider the relationships between varying head injury/impact exposure variables, such as player position and career length, and risk of neurodegenerative disease.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, JAMA, Parkinson's / 01.10.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Wenquan Zou, MD/PhD, Professor Department of Pathology Associate Director National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Cleveland, Ohio 44106 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common age-related neurodegenerative disorder. It is characterized by the accumulation of pathologically misfolded α-synuclein (αSynP) aggregates in the brain. Currently, a definite diagnosis relies on the detection of αSynP-containing Lewy bodies in the brain of PD patients. Development of a reliable and sensitive assay for αSynP in easily accessible peripheral tissue specimens is critical for early or differential diagnosis, determination of disease severity, and evaluation of therapeutic efficacy in clinical trials. Previous studies have revealed that the pathologically phosphorylated α-synuclein is detectable with traditional immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunofluorescence (IF) microscopy but the sensitivity with IHC/IF is highly variable and inconsistent. Also the prion-like aggregation seeding activity of αSynP is detected in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of Parkinson’s disease patients with highly sensitive real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC) and protein misfolding cyclic amplification assays (PMCA). But the lumbar puncture to collect CSF is more invasive compared to skin punch biopsy. (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression, Exercise - Fitness, JAMA, Parkinson's / 10.04.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jojo Kwok  R.N., BN(Hons), MPH, Ph.D. School of Nursing, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine The University of Hong Kong MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Before the study, we knew that mind-body exercises such as yoga and stretching improves the physical health of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), however the benefits to their mental health was not known. This study concludes that mindfulness yoga alleviates psychological distress, improves spiritual well-being and quality of life, not to mention motor symptoms and mobility. When it comes to managing the stress and symptoms of Parkinson Disease, what is exciting, is that yoga has now been proven to be a better strategy than just stretching. Yoga draws together body, mind and spirit through mindful practice of 1) yoga posture, 2) breathing and 3) meditation. These form the three core components of our Mindfulness Yoga Program. Mindfulness is non-judgemental awareness of the present moment - of one’s physical sensations and thoughts, be they positive or negative. By adopting a mind-body approach, patients are much better positioned to reframe their illness journey than through physical training alone. By learning to relate non-judgmentally to their physical symptoms and emotions, they develop new coping skills that cultivate openness, acceptance and resilience to these symptoms. They feel better.  (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, JAMA, Mental Health Research / 28.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Madeleine Liljegren, MD Division of Oncology and Pathology Department of Clinical Sciences Lund University Lund, Sweden MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We know from former studies including patients with a clinical diagnosis of dementia, that criminal and socially inappropriate behaviors can be signs of dementia, sometimes even the first signs of a neurodegenerative disorder. We wanted to study this relatively large (n=220) cohort of neuropathologically verified Alzheimer disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients, who had been followed clinically by specialists in cognitive medicine or geriatric psychiatry during their disease period, to see if we could confirm results from previous studies. In this paper, we further wanted to study potential differences regarding protein pathology and criminal behavior in frontotemporal dementia patients. This has, to our knowledge, never been done before. (more…)
Author Interviews, Genetic Research, JAMA, Race/Ethnic Diversity, Stroke / 11.02.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sandro Marini, MD Research Fellow Jonathan Rosand Laboratory Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, MA 02114 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The epsilon(ε) 4 allele of the Apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene increases risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). In both diseases, it is believed to increase risk through the deposition of beta-amyloid within the brain and blood vessels, respectively. The effect of APOE ε4 on both AD and ICH risk changes across populations, for unclear reasons. In our study, we confirmed the role of APOE ε4 for ICH risk in whites and found that the risk-increasing effect of the 4 allele is demonstrable in Hispanics only when balancing out the effect of hypertension. (more…)