#neurodegenerative-diseases

#neurodegenerative-diseases

Coles' brain was preserved with a slurry of 'cryoprotective' chemicals, and despite expectations of damage, the tissue structure survived with relative vigor.

Lewy body dementia (LBD) is the second-most-common neurodegenerative cause of dementia, after Alzheimer's Disease. But it's the most-common cause that doesn't receive sufficient attention.

Shingles is a viral infection caused by the varicella-zoster virus, which also causes chickenpox. If you've had chickenpox, the virus stays in your body and can reactivate later in life as shingles at any age, though most commonly after 50. While caused by the same virus, shingles and chickenpox are not the same illness. They present differently because, while chickenpox is the initial infection, if and when the virus reactivates, it travels along nerve pathways to the skin, producing shingles.

DNA damage can originate from internal sources like metabolic by-products or normal cellular activities, as well as external factors such as cosmic radiation, diet, and pollution.

When Lorraine Kelly Donnelly felt a cramp in her left hand at the start of 2025, she didn't think anything of it. But when a week later the pain was still there, she made an appointment to see her GP.

We've always said that SuperAgers show that the aging brain can be biologically active, adaptable, flexible, but we didn't know why. This is biological proof that their brains are more plastic, and a real discovery that shows that neurogenesis of young neurons in the hippocampus may be a contributing factor.

Young, two-month-old lab mice housed with older, 18-month-old mice showed really impaired cognition. Researchers exposed young mice raised in a sterile, microbe-free environment to gut bacteria from old mice, causing the younger animals to perform worse on cognitive tests, as if they had prematurely aged, just like the cohoused mice.

A groundbreaking study found that adults who sit for 10 or more hours daily face a significantly higher risk of dementia compared to those who sit less. The research, which tracked over 50,000 adults using wearable devices, revealed that the risk increases dramatically after crossing that 10-hour threshold.

Anyone living with schizophrenia understands the true limitations of current treatment options. Antipsychotics remain the single leading treatment for the disorder, and they are riddled with undesirable side effects. Weight gain, tardive dyskinesia, and excessive drowsiness are a few. Much research is devoted to expanding the range of medication options, and few academics have pursued other avenues. However, there is a possibility that treatment for schizophrenia can be approached through cellular methods if long-term research validates early signs of hope.

Most people will forget a name, misplace their phone, or lose track of a conversation at some point. Usually, those moments pass without much thought. But for many adults, especially as they age, small lapses can trigger a much deeper fear: Is this the beginning of cognitive decline? As a neurologist, I hear this concern often. And as a researcher, I have learned something important: Worry about cognition and cognitive disease are not the same thing.

When I asked neurologists about their top behaviors for brain health, they all stressed the importance of physical activity. Exercise is top, No. 1, when we're thinking about the biggest bang for your buck, said Dr. Gregg Day, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic. Numerous studies have shown that people who exercise regularly tend to perform better on attention, memory and executive functioning tests. There can be a small cognitive boost immediately after a workout, and the effects are sustained if people exercise consistently.

Decades of research show that people who have more years of education, more cognitively demanding jobs or more mentally stimulating hobbies all tend to have a reduced risk of cognitive impairment as they get older. Experts think this is partly thanks to cognitive reserve: Basically, the more brain power you've built up over the years, the more you can stand to lose before you experience impairment.

A recent study published in Biological Psychiatry identified a distinct subtype of psychiatric illness marked by brain inflammation, one that cuts across traditional diagnoses and may explain why standard treatments fail for some people (Tang et al., 2025).This new brain imaging study offers an interesting clue. It turns out that across different psychiatric disorders, some people show clear signs of brain inflammation, visible on scans and confirmed through immune system tests.

But questions remain about the accuracy and uncertainty of these tests, and experts caution that the assays aren't ready for prime time. While the results here are encouraging, they are not yet at the level of having significant clinical benefit for individual patients, says Corey Bolton, a clinical neuropsychologist and an assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who was not involved in the new study.

New therapies for Alzheimer's disease should target a particular gene linked to the condition, according to researchers who said most cases would never arise if its harmful effects were neutralised. The call to action follows the arrival of the first wave of drugs that aim to treat Alzheimer's patients by removing toxic proteins from the brain. While the drugs slow the disease down, the benefits are minor,

To make their discovery, researchers examined donated eye tissue from more than 100 people who had died with Alzheimer's, mild cognitive impairment or no signs of dementia. They were looking specifically for C. pneumoniae, because previous research has already linked it to Alzheimer's. The bacteria has also been detected in brain tissue from patients who died with the condition, sometimes found close to the sticky amyloid plaques and tangles believed to drive memory loss and confusion.

Researchers used data from two health studies to track the caffeine-drinking habits of more than 130,000 people over four decades. They found that drinking 2-3 cups of coffee or 1-2 cups of tea a day was associated with the greatest reductions in rate of cognitive decline, a result that held true even in people with a genetic variant called APOE4, which is associated with Alzheimer's disease.

When a person suffers a stroke, physicians must restore blood flow to the brain as quickly as possible to save their life. But, ironically, that life-saving rush of blood can also trigger a second wave of damage - killing brain cells, fueling inflammation and increasing the odds of long-term disability. Now, in a study published in the journal Neurotherapeutics, Northwestern University scientists have developed an injectable regenerative nanomaterial that helps protect the brain during this vulnerable window.