BrainBlog

The "2014 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures" report from the Alzheimer's Association has been released. It is available as a .pdf document at Facts and Figures and has an accompanying YouTube video.

Robinson, G. & Ceslis, A. (2014). An unusual presentation of probable dementia: Rhyming, associations, and verbal disinhibition. J Neuropsychol. doi: 10.1111/jnp.12041. [Epub ahead of print] We report a case of probable Alzheimer's disease who presented with the unusual feature of disinhibited rhyming. Core language skills were largely intact but generative language was characterized by semantic-based associations, evident in tangential and associative content, and phonology-based associations, evident in rhyming, in the context of prominent executive dysfunction. We suggest this pattern is underpinned by a failure to terminate or inhibit verbal associations resulting in a 'loosening' of associations at the level of conceptual preparation for spoken language. © 2014 The British Psychological Society. PMID: 24581283 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

I commonly use Lisa Genova's wonderful novel, "Still Alice" as a text in the courses I teach about Alzheimer's disease and dementia. If you are a fan of the work as I am, you will be perhaps interested to know that filming for the movie has entered production. Shooting is taking place in New York City. The film stars Julianne Moore , Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, and Kate Bosworth, under the direction of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. Maria Shriver is the Executive Producer. Release date sometime in 2015.

Coursera rings in the new year with second offerings of two exceptional neuroscience courses. These courses are "Drugs and the Brain" and "Medical Neuroscience," first offered in December 2012-January 2013 and April through June of 2013, respectively. Both begin in 2014 by the end of the first week in January. "Drugs and the Brain" is a course by Dr. Henry Lester of CalTech . Dr. Lester is an international expert in neurotransmitter transport mechanisms and models of addiction. The course looks at the relationship between drugs (illicit, recreational, approved medications, and investigational products) and cellular activity. Mechanisms of intracellular and intercellular activity are explored. Addictions, neurodegenerative diseases, and psychiatric conditions are examined. Two additional weeks have been added to the course for this second offering. The recommended text for the course is: Eric Nestler, Steven Hyman, and Robert Malenka (2008). Molecular ...

An entry at the Dana Foundation Blog : Mahlon DeLong Wins Breakthrough Prize for Parkinson's Research 16 December 2013 Read the blog entry

From the NIH: NIH announces six funding opportunities for the BRAIN Initiative in fiscal 2014 17 December 2013 Opportunities focus on developing tools and technologies for advancing our understanding of brain circuitry Read the press release

The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder by Alan Schwarz The New York Times 15 December 2013 Read the full article

Press release from the NIH: NIH deposits first batch of genomic data for Alzheimer’s disease Researchers gain rapid access to first set of raw human genome sequence 02 December 2013 [snip] "Researchers can now freely access the first batch of genome sequence data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced today. The ADSP is one of the first projects undertaken under an intensified national program of research to prevent or effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease. "The first data release includes data from 410 individuals in 89 families. Researchers deposited completed WGS data on 61 families and have deposited WGS data on parts of the remaining 28 families, which will be completed soon. WGS determines the order of all 3 billion letters in an individual’s genome. Researchers can access the sequence data at dbGaP or the National Institute on Aging Genetics of Alzheimer’s Disease Data Storage Site (NIAGADS), ht...

WCU’s Helm-Estabrooks is honored by Massachusetts Neuropsychology Society The Sylva Herald 26 November 2013 Read article

A fine TED Talk made available today, from June of this year: "What is so special about the human brain?"

From the FDA: FDA approves Aptiom to treat seizures in adults 08 November 2013 "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Aptiom (eslicarbazepine acetate) as an add-on medication to treat seizures associated with epilepsy." Read the news release

From the Jacket2: Poemtalk website: "Loss in Reverse (PoemTalk #40)" Read and listen

From the FDA on the 25th of October, quoting the press release: FDA approves second brain imaging drug to help evaluate patients for Alzheimer’s disease, dementia The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Vizamyl (flutemetamol F 18 injection), a radioactive diagnostic drug for use with positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of the brain in adults being evaluated for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia. Dementia is associated with diminishing brain functions such as memory, judgment, language and complex motor skills. The dementia caused by AD is associated with the accumulation in the brain of an abnormal protein called beta amyloid and damage or death of brain cells. However, beta amyloid can also be found in the brain of patients with other dementias and in elderly people without neurologic disease. Vizamyl works by attaching to beta amyloid and producing a PET image of the brain that is used to evaluate the presence of beta amyloid. A negative Vizamyl s...

From Cardiff University News Centre: New Alzheimer’s risk genes discovered in record study 27 October 2013 "In the largest ever study of its kind, an international collaboration of scientists, jointly led by Cardiff, has uncovered 11 new susceptibility genes linked with Alzheimer’s disease. "This major breakthrough will significantly advance scientists’ knowledge of Alzheimer’s. It throws open new research avenues and enables a better understanding of the disease’s disordered functional processes." Read the full press release here .

The HarvardX edX course "Fundamentals of Clinical Trials" started yesterday. Here is some information about the course [click here] . The content for Week One is quite good and presented well by the course faculty. From the course information page: [snip] "This course will provide an introduction to the scientific, statistical, and ethical aspects of clinical trials research. Topics include the design, implementation, and analysis of trials, including first-in-human studies (dose-finding, safety, proof of concept, and Phase I), Phase II, Phase III, and Phase IV studies. All aspects of the development of a study protocol will be addressed, including criteria for the selection of participants, treatments, and endpoints, randomization procedures, sample size determination, data analysis, and study interpretation. The ethical issues that arise at each phase of therapy development will be explored. "This course contains 12 modules. The modules will be released ...

Last week, The Dana Foundation offered online this general overview to Lewy Body Dementia: Lewy Body Dementia: The Under-Recognized but Common Foe By Meera Balasubramaniam and James E. Galvin October 02, 2013 Read the article

The conference website homepage is canadianconferenceondementia.com

One of the number of media reports about today's Amyvid news: Lilly fails to persuade Medicare to pay for Alzheimer's imaging drug September 30, 2013 By Tracy Staton FiercePharma Read article [snippet] "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has handed down its final decision on Eli Lilly's Alzheimer's imaging agent Amyvid. The final answer, after appeals from Lilly and patient groups? No. Medicare won't pay for Amyvid-aided brain scans, not outside of clinical trials." [snippet]

Watch his TED talk here .

From The Washington Post : David H. Hubel, Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist, dies at 87 23 September 2013 Read the article Here is a link to his Nobel Prize lecture: link