1,739 results match your criteria: "Center for Brain Health[Affiliation]"

Introduction: Understanding how contextual socioeconomic factors are associated with psychosocial distress among different ethnoracial groups is important for addressing health disparities in individuals at risk for Alzheimer's disease.

Methods: Using Health and Aging Brain Study-Health Disparities (HABS-HD) data collected between 2017 and 2023, we examined the association of neighborhood disadvantage with psychosocial distress using demographically adjusted linear regression models, stratified by ethnoracial group and cognitive status.

Results: We included 630 non-Hispanic Black, 1109 Hispanic, and 1068 non-Hispanic White older adults deemed cognitively normal (CN) or diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A computational and multi-brain signature for aberrant social coordination in schizophrenia.

Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry

December 2024

Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. Electronic address:

Social functioning impairment is a core symptom of schizophrenia (SCZ). Yet, the computational and neural mechanisms of social coordination in SCZ under real-time and naturalistic settings are poorly understood. Here, we instructed patients with SCZ to coordinate with a healthy control (HC) in a joint finger-tapping task, during which their brain activity was measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy simultaneously.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cognitive impairment is a central characteristic of schizophrenia. Executive functioning (EF) impairments are often seen in mental disorders, particularly schizophrenia, where they relate to adverse outcomes. As a heterogeneous construct, how specifically each dimension of EF to characterize the diagnostic and prognostic aspects of schizophrenia remains opaque.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The role of obesity in persons with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) is incompletely understood. Obesity predisposes individuals to a pro-inflammatory state and cardiovascular comorbidities, both of which can negatively impact MS disease course. A better understanding of weight trends in PwMS will inform optimal management of those who are overweight or obese.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder caused by a CAG trinucleotide repeat expansion in the first exon of the huntingtin gene. The huntingtin protein (Htt) is ubiquitously expressed and localized in several organelles, including endosomes, where it plays an essential role in intracellular trafficking. Presymptomatic HD is associated with a failure in energy metabolism and oxidative stress.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Redesigning Berberines and Sanguinarines to Target Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase for Enhanced Anti-Inflammatory Efficacy.

J Med Chem

December 2024

Key Laboratory of Medicinal Molecule Science and Pharmaceutical Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 102488, China.

Amino-berberine has remained underexplored due to limited biological evaluation and total synthesis approaches. In inflammation therapy, soluble Epoxide Hydrolase (sEH) is a promising target, yet natural scaffolds remain underutilized. Our study advances the field by redesigning natural compounds─berberine and sanguinarine─with strategic urea modifications and hydrogenated frameworks, creating novel sEH inhibitors with enhanced efficacy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Former American football players are at risk for developing traumatic encephalopathy syndrome (TES), the clinical disorder associated with neuropathologically diagnosed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The objective of this study was to determine whether hyposmia is present in traumatic encephalopathy syndrome. The study included 119 former professional American football players, 60 former college football players, and 58 same-age asymptomatic unexposed men from the DIAGNOSE CTE Research Project.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

DNA Methylation Signature of a Lifestyle-based Resilience Index for Cognitive Health.

Res Sq

November 2024

Division of Biostatistics, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL 33136, USA.

Article Synopsis
  • Cognitive resilience (CR) plays a crucial role in determining the risk and progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD), influenced by lifestyle factors rather than just genetics.
  • The study identified specific DNA methylation changes linked to a Resilience Index (RI) based on lifestyle factors, revealing connections to pathways involved in lipid metabolism, synaptic plasticity, and neuroinflammation.
  • A new Methylation-based Resilience Score (MRS) was developed, successfully predicting future cognitive decline, suggesting that DNA methylation could serve as a potential predictive marker for AD and guiding future research.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • High microglial diversity complicates the creation of targeted treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD).
  • A comprehensive analysis of RNA-sequencing data revealed specific microglial subtypes associated with AD and identified potential drug targets, including microglial transition networks.
  • The study highlights ketorolac as a promising anti-inflammatory treatment for AD, showing its association with lower AD incidence in patient databases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

X-chromosome-wide association study for Alzheimer's disease.

Mol Psychiatry

December 2024

Univ. Lille, Inserm, CHU Lille, Institut Pasteur de Lille, LabEx DISTALZ - U1167-RID-AGE Facteurs de Risque et Déterminants Moléculaires des Maladies Liées au Vieillissement, Lille, France.

Article Synopsis
  • A study was conducted to investigate the X-chromosome's role in Alzheimer's Disease (AD), which had been overlooked in previous genome-wide association studies.
  • The research included 115,841 AD cases and 613,671 controls, considering different X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) states in females.
  • While no strong genetic risk factors for AD were found on the X-chromosome, seven significant loci were identified, suggesting areas for future research.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study identifies a common bridging factor (cb factor) that explains overlapping symptoms between depression and anxiety, addressing challenges in understanding and treating these disorders.
  • - This cb factor emerged from analyzing 12 symptoms, using a network analysis approach that highlighted the importance of brain connectivity patterns, particularly in attention and frontoparietal systems.
  • - The research found that these brain patterns have a moderate genetic heritability and are linked to specific genetic markers related to blood vessel development and cerebellar growth during critical developmental stages from late childhood to young adulthood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Integrative pathway analysis across humans and 3D cellular models identifies the p38 MAPK-MK2 axis as a therapeutic target for Alzheimer's disease.

Neuron

January 2025

Genetics and Aging Research Unit, MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA; McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA. Electronic address:

Article Synopsis
  • Alzheimer's disease (AD) poses significant treatment challenges, particularly targeting amyloid-β (Aβ), but a new analysis method uncovered 83 dysfunctional pathways relevant to AD in both human brains and lab models.
  • The p38 MAPK pathway was notably upregulated and linked to tau pathology and neuronal damage, highlighting its potential as a therapeutic target.
  • By using integrative pathway activity analysis (IPAA), researchers can combine human data with cellular models to efficiently identify promising drug targets for AD treatment.*
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

To test for sex differences in the impact of cannabis use on decision-making and brain correlates, we employed cortical thickness (CT) analysis of brain regions involved in intertemporal decision-making namely bilateral orbitofrontal cortex(OFC) and insula in young adult nondependent cannabis-users(CU) and non-users(NU) and their scores on delay discounting task. Neuroimaging analyzes of previously collected data were performed on 608CU and 503NU. CT analysis was performed on MRI images.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

PrP lowering is effective against prion disease in animal models and is being tested clinically. Therapies in the current pipeline lower PrP production, leaving pre-existing PrP to be cleared according to its own half-life. We hypothesized that PrP's half-life may be a rate-limiting factor for the time to effect of PrP-lowering drugs, and one reason why late treatment of prion-infected mice is not as effective as early treatment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: COVID-19-related restrictions led to an increase in overall loneliness and social isolation. Before the pandemic, care partners reported higher levels of loneliness and higher loneliness prevalence compared to non-care partners. Because of the spread and severity of the infections, and the access to support spread, we expect a different impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on LATAM care partners.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Alzheimer's disease treatment landscape: current therapies and emerging mechanism-targeted approaches.

Neural Regen Res

November 2024

Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Djavad Mowafaghian Center for Brain Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Rapidly progressive Alzheimer's disease (rpAD) is a clinical subtype distinguished by its rapid cognitive decline and shorter disease duration. rpAD, like typical AD (tAD), is characterized by underlying neuropathology of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. There is early evidence that the composition of amyloid plaques could vary between the rpAD and tAD.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Progression to Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia from normal cognition (NC) can follow different trajectories, with most progressing through a recognizable mild cognitive impairment stage (NC-MCI-AD), while some individuals transition quickly from NC to AD dementia (NC-AD).

Methods: We compared demographic characteristics, health factors, and cognitive and functional assessments across three time points: the first NC visit, the last NC visit, and the first AD dementia visit.

Results: The NC-MCI-AD group showed greater impairment in cognitive and functional scores at AD dementia diagnosis, despite maintaining better cognitive function during the NC stage.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Structural and social determinants of health: The multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis.

PLoS One

November 2024

Urban Health Collaborative and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.

Background: Researchers have increasingly recognized the importance of structural and social determinants of health (SSDOH) as key drivers of a multitude of diseases and health outcomes. The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) is an ongoing, longitudinal cohort study of subclinical cardiovascular disease (CVD) that has followed geographically and racially/ethnically diverse participants starting in 2000. Since its inception, MESA has incorporated numerous SSDOH assessments and instruments to study in relation to CVD and aging outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

New MiniPromoter Ple389 (ADORA2A) drives selective expression in medium spiny neurons in mice and non-human primates.

Sci Rep

November 2024

Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics at British Columbia Children's Hospital, The University of British Columbia, 2028-950 West 28th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V5Z 4H4, Canada.

Compact cell type-specific promoters are important tools for basic and preclinical research and clinical delivery of gene therapy. In this work, we designed novel MiniPromoters to target D1 and D2 type dopaminoceptive medium spiny neurons in the striatum by manually identifying candidate regulatory regions or employing the OnTarget webserver. We then empirically tested the designs in rAAV-PHP.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Targeted Degradation of Receptor-Interacting Protein Kinase 1 to Modulate the Necroptosis Pathway.

ACS Pharmacol Transl Sci

November 2024

Department of Pathology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States.

Necroptosis is a highly regulated form of necrotic cell death that plays an essential role in pathogen defense and tissue homeostasis. Abnormal regulation of the necroptotic pathway has been implicated in the pathogenesis of various human diseases, including cancer, inflammatory, and neurodegenerative diseases. Receptor-interacting protein kinase 1 (RIPK1) serves as a crucial regulator of the necroptotic signaling pathway and has been identified as a potential therapeutic target.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Approaches for studying neuroimmune interactions in Alzheimer's disease.

Trends Immunol

December 2024

Genetics and Aging Research Unit, McCance Center for Brain Health, Mass General Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA. Electronic address:

Peripheral immune cells play an important role in the pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), impacting processes such as amyloid and tau protein aggregation, glial activation, neuronal integrity, and cognitive decline. Here, we examine cutting-edge strategies - encompassing animal and cellular models - used to investigate the roles of peripheral immune cells in AD. Approaches such as antibody-mediated depletion, genetic ablation, and bone marrow chimeras in mouse models have been instrumental in uncovering T, B, and innate immune cell disease-modifying functions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is one of the leading causes of young-onset dementia before age 65, typically manifesting as abnormal behavior (in behavioral variant FTD) or language impairment (in primary progressive aphasia). Although FTD affects all populations across the globe, knowledge regarding the pathophysiology and genetics derives primarily from studies conducted in North America and Western Europe. Globally, biomedical research for FTD is hindered by variable access to diagnosis, discussed in this group's earlier article, and by reduced access to expertise, funding, and infrastructure.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF