Plasma Neurodegenerative Biomarkers in Cognitively Preserved Nonagenarians.

Plasma biomarkers represent promising tools for the screening and diagnosis of patients with neurodegenerative conditions. However, it is crucial to account for the effects of aging on biomarker profiles, especially in the oldest segments of the population. Additionally, biomarkers in this sample can offer in vivo insights into the physiological mechanisms underlying brain aging while concomitantly supporting cognitive preservation.

Dimensions of cognitive reserve and their predictive power of cognitive performance and decline in the elderly.

Background: The relative importance of different components of cognitive reserve (CR), as well as their differences by gender, are poorly established.

Objective: To explore several dimensions of CR, their differences by gender, and their effects on cognitive performance and trajectory in a cohort of older people without relevant psychiatric, neurologic, or systemic conditions.

Methods: Twenty-one variables related to the education, occupation, social activities, and life habits of 1,093 home-dwelling and cognitively healthy individuals, between 68 and 86 years old, were explored using factorial analyses to delineate several dimensions of CR.

Charting Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia: Epidemiological Insights, Risk Factors and Prevention Pathways.

Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia, is a complex and multifactorial condition without cure at present. The latest treatments, based on anti-amyloid monoclonal antibodies, have only a modest effect in reducing the progression of cognitive decline in AD, whereas the possibility of preventing AD has become a crucial area of research. In fact, recent studies have observed a decrease in dementia incidence in developed regions such as the US and Europe.

Serum GFAP levels correlate with astrocyte reactivity, post-mortem brain atrophy and neurofibrillary tangles.

Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), a proxy of astrocyte reactivity, has been proposed as biomarker of Alzheimer's disease. However, there is limited information about the correlation between blood biomarkers and post-mortem neuropathology. In a single-centre prospective clinicopathological cohort of 139 dementia patients, for which the time-frame between GFAP level determination and neuropathological assessment was exceptionally short (on average 139 days), we analysed this biomarker, measured at three time points, in relation to proxies of disease progression such as cognitive decline and brain weight.