Alzheimer & Parkinson

Brain capillaries are sensors of neural activity. When a brain region is active, capillary endothelial cells (ECs) sense neuron-derived mediators and elicit a local increase in blood flow (functional hyperemia) to support the rise in metabolic needs. This hyperemic response involves a rapid electrical component and a slower chemical component that involves Gαq PCR (G(q)PCR) activation by agonists released from neurons. The intravascular forces associated with hyperemia engage mechanosensitive...

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are emerging as a targeted therapeutic strategy for Alzheimer's disease (AD), offering precise delivery of disease modifying agents with reduced systemic toxicity. By linking monoclonal antibodies to small-molecule payloads, ADCs hold promise in overcoming key challenges in AD treatment, including poor blood-brain barrier (BBB) penetration and off-target effects. This review provides a critical synthesis of ADC strategies in neurodegeneration, with emphasis on...

Olfactory impairment is an early symptom of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, currently used olfactory task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and electroencephalogram features are not powerful enough to detect the impairment. To address this issue, we propose an explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) framework that comprises discriminant analysis/naive Bayes/thresholding classifiers driven by the sample entropy (SE) of...

Neuronal hyperexcitability-defined as increased likelihood of action potential firing in response to stimuli-has emerged as a key pathophysiological feature in both normal aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD). This review synthesizes current evidence across species and models, evaluating the prevalence, mechanisms, and consequences of heightened excitability at the cellular and network levels. We examine electrophysiological and imaging-based indicators of hyperexcitability, including enhanced...

Aducanumab, a human IgG1 antibody with plaque-clearing effects and modest clinical benefit, binds selectively to aggregated Aβ via the N-terminal region. Yet, the molecular details of how the antibody engages Aβ(1-42) fibrils remain unresolved. Using magic-angle spinning NMR, we show that binding of aducanumab preserves the overall architecture of the Aβ(1-42) fibril core while inducing significant structural and dynamic perturbations in the N-terminal region. Antibody binding markedly reduces...

Scopolamine, a muscarinic receptor antagonist, is widely utilized to pharmacologically model Alzheimer's disease (AD) due to its ability to mimic cholinergic deficits and induce memory impairments. Despite its common use in investigating behavioral and cognitive impairments in memory deficit animal models, the longitudinal brain-wide electrophysiological alterations associated with scopolamine administration remain largely unexplored. This study integrated electrophysiological and behavioral...

Aging increases the risk of neurodegeneration, cognitive decline, and Alzheimer's disease (AD). We report that plasma concentrations of ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase-L1 (UCH-L1) and neurofilament light (NfL) become exponentially higher from ages 2 to 85 in cross-sectional samples, serving as neuronal death/damage biomarkers across the lifespan. UCH-L1 concentrations rise faster in females, who exhibit increased AD risk. Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) concentrations increase...

Neuroimaging studies have highlighted both hyperconnectivity and hypoconnectivity across the Alzheimer's disease (AD) continuum, alongside task-induced activity changes. These alterations may reflect compensatory mechanisms or network breakdowns. While connectivity-based measures are not yet established as clinical biomarkers, they hold promises for evaluating therapeutic efficacy and informing the design of targeted interventions. Based on these insights, this review explores the potential of...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most chronic neurodegenerative disease. The pathological hallmark of AD includes the accumulation of amyloid-beta plaques (Aβ), oxidative stress as well as chronic inflammatory reactions. Current treatments, such as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists, and recently approved monoclonal antibodies, offer symptomatic relief or slightly slow down progression. However, they too are constrained by high cost, side effects and...

During deep co-evolution of viruses and host cells, viruses have selected specific host cellular proteins redirected from physiological functions to viral needs, thereby disturbing cellular proteostasis and increasing the risk of triggering protein misfolding diseases (PMDs). Identifying virus-specific, repurposed host proteins also allows the study of fundamental cellular events in "sporadic" PMDs, independent of the virus. Here, we identify a small molecule with very strong activity against...

Parkinson's disease (PD) patients show gait and motor timing impairments that can be improved with different behavioral therapies. This study involved an intervention with seventeen PD patients utilizing a pre-training-training-post-training protocol. The experimental paradigm included a march-in-place task (MPT) and an auditory synchronization-continuation stepping task (SCT). During these tasks, their foot movements were tracked with an infrared motion-capture system. In addition, patients...

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc), which is associated with changes in microglia function. While age remains the biggest risk factor, the underlying molecular cause of PD onset and its concurrent neuroinflammation are not well understood. Many identified PD risk genes have been directly linked to dopamine neuron impairment, while others are linked to immune cell function. In this study, we found that the PD...

Black rice diets are enriched with unsaturated fatty acids that are thought to be beneficial for neurodegenerative disorders in aging. Here we find that α-linolenic acid (ALA) and 11,14-eicosadienoic acid (EDA), which are naturally enriched in black rice, inhibit amyloid pathology, rescue cognition and extend lifespan in mouse preclinical models of Alzheimer's disease via allosteric activation of G protein-coupled receptor 120 (GPR120) in plaque-associated macrophages and activated microglia. We...

Progressive neuronal loss and brain atrophy are principal determinants of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease (AD), yet most mouse models fail to recapitulate these features. Here we identify cyclin-dependent kinase 3 (CDK3) as a key driver of neurodegeneration in AD. CDK3 is elevated in human AD brains and correlates with disease severity. As laboratory mice carry a nonfunctional Cdk3 mutation, we generated two models with restored CDK3 activity and then crossed to AD backgrounds. Both...

With therapeutic progress in Alzheimer's disease (AD), more molecular and mechanistic targets are coming into focus. Beyond amyloid, emerging targets include tau, neuroinflammation and neurotransmitters. Targeting neuroinflammation in neurodegenerative diseases has been explored using cyclooxygenase inhibitors, but it has mostly been unsuccessful. Among the drug classes under investigation for AD are the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), which are approved for the treatment...

Genetic variants associated with complex traits often lie in distal enhancers. While candidate enhancers have been mapped genome wide, their functional state and gene targets in specific cell types remain unclear. Here we present AstroREG, a resource of enhancer-gene interactions in human primary astrocytes, generated by combining CRISPR inhibition (CRISPRi), single-cell RNA-seq and machine learning. By functionally testing nearly 1,000 PsychENCODE enhancers, we identified more than 150...

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Synaptic loss is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD) but lacks robust blood-based biomarkers. We investigate growth-associated protein 43 (GAP-43), previously identified as a synaptic candidate in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Postmortem proteomic profiling of brain-derived extracellular vesicles (n = 21) highlights GAP-43 as a central hub within synaptic protein networks co-depleted in AD and closely linked with proteins enriched in immune-, metabolic-, and synaptic-related modules. In two...

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) medicines are used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes (T2D) and obesity and reduce rates of cardiovascular disease, including stroke, in people with T2D. Substantial evidence from real-world data and clinical trials highlights the therapeutic potential of GLP-1 medicines for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Similarly, there is growing evidence for the potential utility of using GLP-1 medicines to reduce...

The prevalence of Alzheimer's disease neuropathological changes (ADNCs), the leading cause of cognitive impairment, remains uncertain. Recent blood-based biomarkers enable scalable assessment of ADNCs¹. Here we measured phosphorylated tau at threonine 217 in 11,486 plasma samples from a Norwegian population-based cohort of individuals over 57 years of age as a surrogate marker for ADNCs. The estimated prevalence of ADNCs increased with age, from less than 8% in people 58-69.9 years of age to...