Dementia News

June 25, 2025

Top Headlines

The Brain’s Sweet Spot: How Criticality Could Unlock Learning, Memory—and Prevent Alzheimer’s

June 25, 2025 — Our brains may work best when teetering on the edge of chaos. A new theory suggests that criticality a sweet spot between order and randomness is the secret to learning, memory, and adaptability. ...

The Common Blood Test That Predicts How Fast Alzheimer’s Hits

June 22, 2025 — A simple blood test could reveal which early Alzheimer’s patients are most at risk for rapid decline. Researchers found that people with high insulin resistance—measured by the TyG index—were four times more likely to experience faster ...

Iron Overload: The Hidden Culprit Behind Early Alzheimer’s in Down Syndrome

June 21, 2025 — USC researchers have uncovered a hidden driver behind the early and severe onset of Alzheimer's in people with Down syndrome: iron overload in the brain. Their study revealed that individuals with ...

The Hunger Switch in Your Nose: How Smells Tell Your Brain to Stop Eating

June 12, 2025 — A team of scientists has discovered a direct link between the smell of food and feelings of fullness at least in lean mice. This brain circuit, located in the medial septum and triggered by food odors, helps animals eat less by making them feel ...

Immune System Discovery Reveals Potential Solution to Alzheimer's

June 2, 2025 — A new way of thinking about Alzheimer's disease has yielded a discovery that could be the key to stopping the cognitive decline seen in Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS and ...

Sharing of Lifespan Brain Study Data Expected to Light New Paths

May 30, 2025 — Researchers have released the full dataset from the Dallas Lifespan Brain Study, a decade-long project designed to track brain and cognitive health as people age and distinguish neurologically healthy paths from those indicating a likelihood of ...

Newly Identified Group of Nerve Cells in the Brain Regulates Bodyweight

May 30, 2025 — Obesity is a global health problem that affects many people. In recent years, very promising anti-obesity drugs have been developed. Despite these successes, there are patients who do not respond to these drugs or suffer from side effects. ...

Sustained in the Brain: How Lasting Emotions Arise from Brief Stimuli, in Humans and Mice

May 29, 2025 — Humans and mice share persistent brain-activity patterns in response to adverse sensory experience, scientists find, opening a window to our emotions and, perhaps, neuropsychiatric ...

New Pace of Aging Measurement Reveals Trajectories of Healthspan and Lifespan in Older People

May 28, 2025 — A newly refined method for measuring the Pace of Aging in population-based studies provides a powerful tool for predicting risks associated with aging, including chronic illness, cognitive ...

Different Versions of APOE Protein Have Varying Effect on Microglia in Alzheimer's Disease

May 27, 2025 — A new study suggests how APOE2 is protective while APOE4 increases disease risk by regulating the brain's immune ...

Potential New Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease, Other Neurodegenerative Conditions

May 26, 2025 — Worldwide, more than 55 million people suffer from dementia caused by Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and other conditions that destroy cells in the brain and nervous system. While there is no treatment to ...

New Research on ALS Opens Up for Early Treatment

May 20, 2025 — Using the gene scissors CRISPR and stem cells, researchers have managed to identify a common denominator for different gene mutations that all cause the neurological disease ALS. The research shows that ALS-linked dysfunction occurs in the energy ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:05pm EDT

Study Reveals Impacts of Alzheimer's Disease on the Whole Body

May 17, 2025 — While Alzheimer's disease is mostly considered a disorder of the brain, emerging evidence suggests that the condition also affects other organs of the body. Working with the laboratory fruit fly, ...

Sugar-Coated Nanotherapy Dramatically Improves Neuron Survival in Alzheimer's Model

May 14, 2025 — In many neurodegenerative diseases, proteins misfold and clump together in brain tissue. Scientists developed a new therapy made of peptides and a ...

CAR-T Cell Therapy for Cancer Causes 'Brain Fog,' Study Shows

May 12, 2025 — Cancer treatment with a cell-based immunotherapy causes mild cognitive impairment, a Stanford Medicine team found. They also identified compounds that could treat ...

Drug to Slow Alzheimer's Well Tolerated Outside of Clinical Trial Setting

May 12, 2025 — In a recent study, researchers found adverse events were rare and manageable among clinic patients with very mild or mild Alzheimer's disease who received lecanemab ...

HIV Drugs Offer 'Substantial' Alzheimer's Protection, New Research Indicates

May 8, 2025 — The drugs, called NRTIs, have the potential to prevent a million cases of Alzheimer's every year, the researchers ...

Sleep Apnea During REM Sleep Linked to Memory-Related Brain Changes

May 8, 2025 — Obstructive sleep apnea, a condition that causes lower oxygen levels during sleep, is linked to degeneration of brain regions associated with memory through damage to the brain's small blood vessels, ...

Knowing Your Alzheimer's Risk May Ease Anxiety but Reduce Motivation for Healthy Habits

May 7, 2025 — Learning about one's risk for Alzheimer's disease may not lead to emotional distress, but motivation to maintain healthy lifestyle changes tends to ...

Most People Say They Want to Know Their Risk for Alzheimer's Dementia, Fewer Follow Through

May 6, 2025 — A new study examines the choices healthy research volunteers make when given the opportunity to learn their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease ...

A Protein Link Between Brain Diseases and Leaky Blood Vessels

May 3, 2025 — Reduced levels of a critical protein are linked to devastating brain diseases like Alzheimer's, frontotemporal dementia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Surprisingly, the protein shortage ...

Researchers Find That Increase of 'CLU' Protein Promotes Brain Resilience and Could Provide Protection from Alzheimer's Disease

May 2, 2025 — Recently approved Alzheimer's drugs offer a step forward for treating the disease, but new therapeutic strategies are needed to complement them and ...

Increasing Physical Activity in Middle Age May Protect Against Alzheimer's Disease

Apr. 30, 2025 — An increase in physical activity between the ages of 45 and 65 could help prevent Alzheimer's disease, while inactivity may be detrimental to brain ...

First Synthetic 'Mini Prion' Shows How Protein Misfolding Multiplies

Apr. 28, 2025 — Prions transmit their abnormally folded shape onto other proteins. Researchers designed a synthetic fragment of the tau protein that exhibits prion-like behavior. Misfolded tau proteins are the ...

AI Helps Unravel a Cause of Alzheimer's Disease and Identify a Therapeutic Candidate

Apr. 25, 2025 — A new study found that a gene recently recognized as a biomarker for Alzheimer's disease is actually a cause of it, due to its previously unknown secondary function that triggers a pathway that ...

Even Light Exercise Could Help Slow Cognitive Decline in People at Risk of Alzheimer's

Apr. 24, 2025 — In a landmark clinical trial people at risk for Alzheimer's who exercised at low or moderate-high intensity showed less cognitive decline when compared to those receiving usual ...

Exercise Boosts Brain Health -- Even When Energy Is Low

Apr. 24, 2025 — We know exercise is good for our body, but what about our brains? A new study suggests that exercise plays a crucial role in keeping our minds sharp, even when one of the brain's key energy ...

Clinical Trials to Test Vaccine Against Alzheimer's-Promoting Tau Protein

Apr. 23, 2025 — Researchers hope to launch human clinical trials in their quest for a vaccine to prevent the buildup of pathological tau after demonstrating that this vaccine generated a robust immune response in ...

ATP Prevents Harmful Aggregation of Proteins Associated With Parkinson's and ALS

Apr. 23, 2025 — While a comprehensive cure-all to these neurological conditions is unlikely, scientists are making headway into understanding their fundamental characteristics with the hope of preventing or ...

Empathy Might Be Retained in Alzheimer's Disease

Apr. 23, 2025 — People with Alzheimer's disease may retain their ability to empathize, despite declines in other social abilities, finds a new ...

New Research Lays Groundwork for Early Detection of Alzheimer's Disease

Apr. 21, 2025 — A new study suggests that risk factors and biomarkers related to Alzheimer's disease are associated with cognition much earlier in life than previously recognized. The study highlights ...

Engineered Microglia Show Promise for Treating Alzheimer's and Other Brain Diseases

Apr. 21, 2025 — A new way to deliver disease-fighting proteins throughout the brain may improve the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders, according to scientists. By engineering ...

Integrative Approach Reveals Promising Candidates for Alzheimer's Disease Risk Factors or Targets for Therapeutic Intervention

Apr. 18, 2025 — A new study provides solutions to the pressing need to identify factors that influence Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk or resistance while providing an avenue to explore potential biological ...

How Do Age, Sex, Hormones and Genetics Affect Dementia Biomarkers in the Blood?

Apr. 16, 2025 — A new study has found important clues about the roles age, sex, hormonal changes and genetics play in how certain biomarkers for dementia are expressed in the blood, according to a new ...

Hereditary Alzheimer's: Blood Marker for Defective Neuronal Connections Rises Early

Apr. 16, 2025 — Individuals with a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer's disease show altered blood levels indicating damaged neuronal contacts as early as 11 years before the expected onset of dementia ...

Scientists Identify Key Enzyme in Alzheimer's Disease That Links Brain Inflammation to Memory Loss

Apr. 14, 2025 — A research team has identified a previously unknown enzyme, SIRT2, that plays a key role in memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The study provides critical insights into how ...

Eight or More Drinks Per Week Linked to Signs of Injury in the Brain

Apr. 9, 2025 — Heavy drinkers who have eight or more alcoholic drinks per week have an increased risk of brain lesions called hyaline arteriolosclerosis, signs of brain injury that are associated with memory and ...

Father With Alzheimer's? You May Be More at Risk of Brain Changes

Apr. 9, 2025 — While some studies have suggested that having a mother with Alzheimer's disease may put you more at risk of developing the disease, a new study finds that having a father with the disease may be ...

New Insights Into Neurodegeneration Using Human 'Mini Brains'

Apr. 9, 2025 — Researchers have discovered a new way that neurons act in neurodegeneration by using human neural organoids -- also known as 'mini-brain' models -- from patients with frontotemporal lobar ...

Potential Alzheimer's Disease Therapeutic Target Identified in Brain Immune Cells

Apr. 9, 2025 — Tim-3 is an immune checkpoint molecule involved in immunity and inflammation recently linked to late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD), but its role in the brain was unknown until now. Researchers ...

ALS Drug Effectively Treats Alzheimer's Disease in New Animal Study

Apr. 8, 2025 — Experimental drug NU-9 -- a small molecule compound approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical trials for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) -- improves ...

AI Tool Can Track Effectiveness of Multiple Sclerosis Treatments

Apr. 7, 2025 — A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can help interpret and assess how well treatments are working for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) has been ...