Drug Development.

Background: Benfotiamine, a prodrug of thiamine, raises blood levels by 50-100 times to achieve pharmacologic effects. It provides a novel therapeutic direction addressing a well-characterized brain tissue thiamine deficiency and related changes in glucose metabolism in AD. BenfoTeam is a seamless phase 2A-2B "proof of concept" (POC), double-blind, placebo-controlled RCT investigating tolerability, safety, and efficacy of benfotiamine, as a first-in-class small molecule treatment for early AD.

Enrichment for clinical trials of early AD: Combining genetic risk factors and plasma p-tau as screening instruments.

Introduction: Identifying low-cost, minimally-invasive screening instruments for Alzheimer's disease (AD) trial enrichment will improve the efficiency of AD trials.

Methods: A total of 685 cognitively normal (CN) individuals and individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) were grouped according to cutoffs of genetic risk factor (G) polygenic hazard score (PHS) and tau pathology (T) plasma phosphorylated tau-181 (p-tau181) into four groups: G+T+, G-T-, G+T-, and G-T+. We assessed the associations between group level and longitudinal cognitive decline and AD conversion.

Memory-related brain potentials for visual objects in early AD show impairment and compensatory mechanisms.

Impaired episodic memory is the primary feature of early Alzheimer's disease (AD), but not all memories are equally affected. Patients with AD and amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) remember pictures better than words, to a greater extent than healthy elderly. We investigated neural mechanisms for visual object recognition in 30 patients (14 AD, 16 aMCI) and 36 cognitively unimpaired healthy (19 in the "preclinical" stage of AD).

Exercise: Just What the Doctor Ordered, But Why? Elucidating Mechanisms for Women's Increased High-Density Lipoprotein Benefit From Exercise and for the Health ABC Study.

High-density lipoprotein (HDL) is protective against cardiovascular disease. Exercise can increase HDL concentration, and some evidence suggests that this effect occurs more strongly in women than in men. Both HDL and exercise are associated with inflammation.