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Dementia is a syndrome associated with many neurodegenerative diseases, characterized by a general decline in cognitive abilities that affects a person's ability to perform everyday activities. This typically involves problems with memory, thinking, behavior, and motor control. Aside from memory impairment and a disruption in thought patterns, the most common symptoms of dementia include emotional problems, difficulties with language, and decreased motivation. The symptoms may be described as occurring in a continuum over several stages. Dementia ultimately has a significant effect on the individual, their caregivers, and their social relationships in general. A diagnosis of dementia requires the observation of a change from a person's usual mental functioning and a greater cognitive decline than might be caused by the normal aging process.
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), also called frontotemporal degeneration disease or frontotemporal neurocognitive disorder, encompasses several types of dementia involving the progressive degeneration of the brain's frontal and temporal lobes. Men and women appear to be equally affected. FTD generally presents as a behavioral or language disorder with gradual onset. Signs and symptoms tend to appear in late adulthood, typically between the ages of 45 and 65, although it can affect people younger or older than this. Currently, no cure or approved symptomatic treatment for FTD exists, although some off-label drugs and behavioral methods are prescribed.
Cognitive disorders (CDs), also known as neurocognitive disorders (NCDs), are a category of mental health disorders that primarily affect cognitive abilities including learning, memory, perception, and problem-solving. Neurocognitive disorders include delirium, mild neurocognitive disorders, and major neurocognitive disorder. They are defined by deficits in cognitive ability that are acquired, typically represent decline, and may have an underlying brain pathology. The DSM-5 defines six key domains of cognitive function: executive function, learning and memory, perceptual-motor function, language, complex attention, and social cognition.
Cognitive reserve is the mind's and brain's resistance to damage of the brain. The mind's resilience is evaluated behaviorally, whereas the neuropathological damage is evaluated histologically, although damage may be estimated using blood-based markers and imaging methods. There are two models that can be used when exploring the concept of "reserve": brain reserve and cognitive reserve. These terms, albeit often used interchangeably in the literature, provide a useful way of discussing the models. Using a computer analogy, brain reserve can be seen as hardware and cognitive reserve as software. All these factors are currently believed to contribute to global reserve. Cognitive reserve is commonly used to refer to both brain and cognitive reserves in the literature.
The Nun Study of Aging and Alzheimer's Disease is a continuing longitudinal study, begun in 1986, to examine the onset of Alzheimer's disease. David Snowdon, an Epidemiologist and the founding Nun Study investigator, started the Nun Study at the University of Minnesota, later transferring the study to the University of Kentucky in 1990. In 2008, with Snowdon's retirement, the study returned to the University of Minnesota. The Nun Study was very briefly moved from the University of Minnesota to Northwestern University in 2021 under the directorship of Dr. Margaret Flanagan. The Nun Study is currently housed at the University of Texas Health San Antonio in the Bigg's Institute for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative diseases under the continued directorship of Neuropathologist, Dr. Margaret Flanagan.
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a diagnosis that reflects an intermediate stage of cognitive impairment that is often, but not always, a transitional phase from cognitive changes in normal aging to those typically found in dementia, especially dementia due to Alzheimer's disease. MCI may include both memory and non-memory neurocognitive impairments. About 50 percent of people diagnosed with MCI have Alzheimer's disease and go on to develop Alzheimer's dementia within five years. MCI can also serve as an early indicator for other types of dementia, although MCI may also remain stable or remit. Many definitions of MCI exist. A common feature of many of these is that MCI involves cognitive impairments that are measurable but that are not significant enough to interfere with instrumental activities of daily living.
The NINCDS-ADRDA Alzheimer's Criteria were proposed in 1984 by the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke and the Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association and are among the most used in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). These criteria require that the presence of cognitive impairment and a suspected dementia syndrome be confirmed by neuropsychological testing for a clinical diagnosis of possible or probable AD; while they need histopathologic confirmation for the definitive diagnosis. They specify as well eight cognitive domains that may be impaired in AD. These criteria have shown good reliability and validity.
L-α-Glycerophosphorylcholine is a natural choline compound found in the brain. It is also a parasympathomimetic acetylcholine precursor which has been investigated for its potential for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems with language, disorientation, mood swings, loss of motivation, self-neglect, and behavioral issues. As a person's condition declines, they often withdraw from family and society. Gradually, bodily functions are lost, ultimately leading to death. Although the speed of progression can vary, the average life expectancy following diagnosis is three to twelve years.
A hyperintensity or T2 hyperintensity is an area of high intensity on types of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the brain of a human or of another mammal that reflect lesions produced largely by demyelination and axonal loss. These small regions of high intensity are observed on T2 weighted MRI images within cerebral white matter or subcortical gray matter. The volume and frequency is strongly associated with increasing age. They are also seen in a number of neurological disorders and psychiatric illnesses. For example, deep white matter hyperintensities are 2.5 to 3 times more likely to occur in bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder than control subjects. WMH volume, calculated as a potential diagnostic measure, has been shown to correlate to certain cognitive factors. Hyperintensities appear as "bright signals" on an MRI image and the term "bright signal" is occasionally used as a synonym for a hyperintensity.
Subcortical dementias includes those diseases which predominantly affects the basal ganglia along with features of cognitive decline.
A silent stroke is a stroke that does not have any outward symptoms associated with stroke, and the patient is typically unaware they have suffered a stroke. Despite not causing identifiable symptoms, a silent stroke still causes damage to the brain and places the patient at increased risk for both transient ischemic attack and major stroke in the future. In a broad study in 1998, more than 11 million people were estimated to have experienced a stroke in the United States. Approximately 770,000 of these strokes were symptomatic and 11 million were first-ever silent MRI infarcts or hemorrhages. Silent strokes typically cause lesions which are detected via the use of neuroimaging such as MRI. The risk of silent stroke increases with age but may also affect younger adults. Women appear to be at increased risk for silent stroke, with hypertension and current cigarette smoking being amongst the predisposing factors.
Vladimir Hachinski is a Canadian clinical neuroscientist and researcher based at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University. He is also a Senior Scientist at London's Robarts Research Institute. His research pertains in the greatest part to stroke and dementia, the interactions between them and their joint prevention through holistic brain health promotion. He and John W. Norris helped to establish the world's first successful stroke unit at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, and, by extension, helped cement stroke units as the standard of care for stroke patients everywhere. He discovered that the control of the heart by the brain is asymmetric, the fight/flight (sympathetic) response being controlled by the right hemisphere and the rest and digest (parasympathetic) response being controlled by the left hemisphere and damage to one key component can lead to heart irregularities and sudden death. This discovery has added fundamental knowledge to how the brain controls the heart and blood pressure and lays the foundation for helping prevent sudden death.
The Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center (RADC) is an independent research center located in the Medical College of Rush University Medical Center. The Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center is one of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers in the U.S. designated and funded by the National Institute on Aging.
Michael D. Geschwind is a professor of neurology at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center (MAC), specializing in neurodegenerative disorders.
Nicole Schupf is an American epidemiologist and neuroscientist who is Professor of Epidemiology in Neurology, Psychiatry, the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, and the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University Faculty of Medicine. She studies aging and Alzheimer's disease in individuals with Down syndrome.
Rachelle Smith Doody is an American neurologist and neuroscientist. She is known for her work on late stage development of drugs for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.
Martha Clare Morris was an American nutritional epidemiologist who studied the link between diet and Alzheimer's disease. She led a team of researchers at the Rush University Medical Center to develop the MIND diet.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) in African Americans is becoming a rising topic of interest in AD care, support, and scientific research, as African Americans are disproportionately affected by AD. Recent research on AD has shown that there are clear disparities in the disease among racial groups, with higher prevalence and incidence in African Americans than the overall average. Pathologies for Alzheimer’s also seem to manifest differently in African Americans, including with neuroinflammation markers, cognitive decline, and biomarkers. Although there are genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s, these account for few cases in all racial groups.
David A Bennett is a neurologist, Director of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center (RADC), and the Robert C Borwell Professor of Neurology at Rush University Medical Center. Bennett is also visiting professor, Instituto de Assistencia Medica ao Servidor Publico Estadual (IAMSPE), São Paulo, Brazil.
References
- ↑ Biostatistics dissertations, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health , retrieved 2019-01-01
- ↑ Presidents 1971–2017 (PDF), Caucus for Women in Statistics , retrieved 2019-01-01
- ↑ Individual members, International Statistical Institute, archived from the original on 2017-07-29, retrieved 2019-01-01
- ↑ ASA Fellows list, American Statistical Association, retrieved 2021-07-04