About every 40 seconds, someone in the United States has a stroke. About one in three of those people will eventually suffer from dementia if …
Category: Alzheimer’s
Using a smartphone and the Folding@home app to advance disease research
Smartphones now have the power that personal computers had a few years ago, and more and more people have them. So researchers are developing ways …
Blocking a receptor on brain’s immune cells counters Alzheimer’s in mice
Attention, nerve cells: It's not all about you. As a new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation led by Stanford neuroscientist Kati Andreasson, MD, …
Stanford neurobiologist Bill Newsome: Seeking gains for the brain
Bill Newsome, PhD, knows the brain perhaps as well as the back of his hand. The Stanford neurobiologist was vice chair of the federal BRAIN Initiative launched …
How sleep acts as a cleaning system for the brain
Here's one more reason why getting a good night's sleep is critical to your health. As neuroscientist Jeff Iliff, PhD, explains in this just released …
The toll of Alzheimer’s on caretakers
My last grandparent, my paternal grandmother, passed away earlier this year. She lived into her 90s and, like both my maternal grandmother and grandfather, she …
Even old brains can stay healthy, says Stanford neurologist
This is the fourth installment of our Biomed Bites series, a weekly feature that highlights some of Stanford's most compelling research and introduces readers to …
Can Alzheimer's damage to the brain be repaired?
In my recent Stanford Medicine article about Alzheimer's research, called "Rethinking Alzheimer's," I chronicled a variety of new approaches by Stanford scientists to nipping Alzheimer's …
Stanford’s brightest lights reveal new insights into early underpinnings of Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer's disease, whose course ends inexorably in the destruction of memory and reason, is in many respects America's most debilitating disease. As I wrote in …
The reefer connection: Brain's "internal marijuana" signaling system implicated in very early stages of Alzheimer's pathology
It's axiomatic that every psychoactive drug works by mimicking some naturally occurring, evolutionarily adaptive, brain-produced substance. Cocaine and amphetamines mimic some aspects of a signaling …
The rechargeable brain: Blood plasma from young mice improves old mice's memory and learning
"Maybe Ponce de Leon should have considered becoming a vampire," I noted here a few years ago. In a related Stanford Medicine article, I elaborated on …
The state of Alzheimer's research: A conversation with Stanford neurologist Michael Greicius
My colleague Bruce Goldman recently wrote an expansive blog entry and article based on research by Mike Greicius, MD, about how the ApoE4 variant doubles …
Having a copy of ApoE4 gene variant doubles Alzheimer’s risk for women but not for men
Since the early 1990s, when Duke University neurologist Allen Roses, MD, first broke the news, it's been known that a person carrying the gene variant …
Estradiol – but not Premarin – prevents neurodegeneration in women at heightened dementia risk
Women near the age of menopause and at elevated risk for dementia - owing, say, to a family history of Alzheimer's disease, a personal history …
NCCAM to host Twitter chat on research and complementary health approaches for Alzheimer's
Save the date (it's tomorrow) and tune in for a Twitter chat on Alzheimer's research and complementary health approaches to preventing or managing the disease. …
Studying the link between post-menopausual hormones, cognition and mood
Menopause represents a major change in a woman's life and body, and researchers have long sought to determine whether hormonal shifts associated with "The Change" …