Research Findings

With brains donated to research at USC’s Memory and Aging Center, Dr. Christian Pike has shown how estrogen in women and androgen in men may protect against the development of Alzheimer changes. The results are directly relevant to treatment and prevention; animal studies and clinical trials are currently underway to test new compounds for treating Alzheimer disease.

Read Dr. Pike’s original articles about Protective actions of sex steroid hormones and Brain levels of sex steroid hormones.
Read a press release.

B vitamins and lowering homocysteine in blood do not improve Alzheimer disease

The results of a national, multicenter clinical trial showed that people with mild to moderate AD did not benefit from taking higher doses of B vitamins.  If was thought that either B vitamins alone or their effect on blood homocysteine, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, might improve symptoms in people with mild to moderate AD.

Unfortunately, people with AD do not benefit from taking high doses of B vitamins.

Patients at the USC’s Memory and Aging Center contributed to this study published in JAMA, and Dr. Lon Schneider is one of the study’s co-authors.

Read the article in JAMA

Caloric restriction and AD

Overly rich diets leading to obesity may be a risk factor for Alzheimer disease as well as stroke. Dr. Caleb Finch and collaborators showed that reduced food intake also slowed Alzheimer changes in mice carrying Alzheimer genes. The equivalent of missing lunch for 30 years decreased the Alzheimer changes by 35%.

Read the original research article

The brains of people with AD express different proteins than people without AD

Dr. Carol Miller and her colleagues have discovered molecular changes in the nerve terminals in the brains of individuals at early stages of Alzheimer’s disease compared to individuals who do not have Alzheimer disease. Her study showed what happens in the brain when an individual begins to experience problems multi-tasking or thinking through complex problems. These findings have implications for developing new drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, and for suggesting what people might be able to do during their adult life to reduce risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. The research was made possible by brains that were donated to research at USC’s Memory and Aging Center.

Read the press release
Read the original article

Decreasing risk factors for heart disease may lessen the risk for dementia

Drs. Helena Chui and Margaret Gatz and the Reverend Cecil Murray (who presided over the First African Methodist Episcopal Church before joining the USC faculty) have joined the national effort to raise awareness among African Americans who are at risk for higher rates of dementia during Alzheimer disease. African Americans may be able to reduce their risk of dementia by better control of risk factors for heart disease and for stroke which add insult to the injury of Alzheimer’s.

Read a press release about the national project.
Read an article by Chui and Gatz about cultural diversity and Alzheimer disease.

Brain changes are evident in middle age

Alzheimer disease is sometimes described as aging gone from bad to worse. Using brains donated from participants in USC’s Memory and Aging Center, Dr. Caleb Finch showed loss of nerve synapses in even healthy middle-aged people. The synapse loss may be why mental speed and ability to do multi-tasking slows during middle age. But unlike Alzheimer brains, the nerve cells are still there.