Results for "Alzheimer's"

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New Law Would Let Corporations Patent Human Genes

Private Property If a new amendment to federal patent legislation gets signed into law, biotech and pharmaceutical companies may be able to patent individual human genes — claiming the right to all experimentation, tests, and treatments of genetic conditions. The law would reverse the legal precedent that the U.S. Patent Office can’t grant intellectual property rights

Dangerous Combo

New Research: Herpes May Make You Get Alzheimer’s Earlier

Suiting Up Certain viruses could speed up the onset and progression of neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s Disease. In particular, herpes simplex virus type 1 — that’s the kind associated with cold sores around your mouth — can speed up the onset of the cognitive disease, according to research published Monday in Nature Communications. The finding couldfinally

Destroy The Brain

Scientists: Drugs That Kill “Zombie Cells” Could Prevent Aging

Biological Boomstick Doctors trying to eradicate age-related diseases have a new target: “zombified” senescent cells that can build up in people’s brains after an infection or stress. Most of the research that links senescent cells to conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis was conducted in mice, according to the Associated Press. But in February,

Zapping Addiction

In China, Surgeons Are Treating Addiction With Brain Implants

Victor Tangermann

Deep Brain Deep brain stimulation (DBS), an experimental technology that involves implanting a pacemaker-like device in a patient’s brain to send electrical impulses, is a hotly debated subject in the field of medicine. It’s an inherently risky procedure and the exact effects on the human brain aren’t yet fully understood. But some practitioners believe it could

Lost at Sea

This Video Game Detects Alzheimer’s Earlier Than Lab Tests

Natalie Coleman

Memory Loss Although memory problems are the strongest indicators of Alzheimer’s disease, they’re a late-stage symptom. A much earlier sign of dementia is poor spatial orientation — which researchers are now leveraging to determine who’s at risk by asking them to play a video game. “Research shows us that the brain changes associated with diseases like Alzheimer’s begin

Brain Gang

“The Mice Became Smarter”: New Treatment Restores Aging Brains

Antibodies for Algernon Scientists at Stanford University say they’ve devised antibodies that block a specific gene related to brain aging — and that it’s giving old mice the cognitive prowess of younger ones. “The mice became smarter,” senior author Tony Wyss-Coray said in a statement. “Blocking [the gene] CD22 on their microglia restored their cognitive function to

Controversial Research

New Study Suggests Adult Brains Might Grow New Neurons

Neurogenesis New research has found that the brains of healthy adult humans continue to produce new neurons throughout life. The study, published Monday in Nature Medicine, is the latest on a topic that has divided neuroscientists for decades — if it holds up, it could set the groundwork for new ways to treat conditions ranging from Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer's Device

The FDA Is Considering First-Ever Machine to Treat Alzheimer’s

Victor Tangermann

Alzheimer’s Device The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is officially considering the use of the first-ever medical device to treat the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. That’s an exciting prospect, for reasons IEEE Spectrum lays out in a new story about the startup Neuronix: no single drug has yet been approved by the FDA that

Gene Scene

Alzheimer’s Trial Will “Bathe” Patients’ Brains in Helpful Genes

Brain Bath Roughly 25 years ago, the hunt for a cause of Alzheimer’s disease led researchers to the gene APOE. This gene comes in three common variants, and the version a person has appears to increase or decrease their risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Soon, researchers will launch a clinical trial in which they’ll attempt to

Plant Power

“Holy Herb” Shows Promise as Alzheimer’s Treatment

Old Medicine The name native California tribes gave to the plant Eriodictyon californicum — “Yerba santa” — translates to “holy herb” in English, and the moniker is a testament to the tribes’ respect for the plant, which they used to treat everything from headaches to sore muscles. Now, in a heartening old-meets-new finding, scientists think they may have