A Review on suspected non-Alzheimer disease pathophysiology (SNAP)

SNAP = a heterogeneous biomarker-based concept that describes individuals with normal amyloid and abnormal tau and/or neurodegeneration biomarker status.

This review describes the origins of the SNAP construct,…

What is your first peer-reviewed first-author paper and what did you find?

I’ll start with Ossenkoppele et al. EJNNMI 2012, aka the “FDDNP killer”.

In the mid/late-2000s (believe it or not), [18F]FDDNP posed a significant challenge to the now widely accepted amyloid PET tracer…

Brain-first vs. body-first Parkinson’s disease

Just published in Parkinsonism and Related Disorders

This disease model posits that early α-synuclein pathology emerges from either the olfactory bulb or amygdala (resulting in a brain-first subtype) or from the peripheral nervous…

POST-DOC OPPORTUNITY in Melbourne

Postdoctoral Fellowship in PET imaging for Alzheimer’s disease offered at CSIRO.

Link > jobs.csiro.au/job/Melbourne%…

I have witnessed first-hand over the last couple of months that the science is great, you'll get to work with great minds and warm…

Updated Lecanemab safety results

Just published in Alzheimer's Research & Therapy.

This analysis now also includes the open-label extension (OLE) study of the FDA-approved anti-amyloid drug Lecanemab (Leqembi).

Main new findings:

1⃣ There were 9 deaths during the OLE, with 4…

2024 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures

Let's all work smart and hard to prevent these 2060 projections from happening. #EndAlz

Link > alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.10…

@alzassociaton

A petavoxel fragment of human cerebral cortex reconstructed at nanoscale resolution

Just published in Science.

This is spectacular work!

The authors obtained a 1 mm3 sample of the human temporal cortex from an individual undergoing epileptic surgery. This sample was then…

Review on CSF biomarkers in AD clinical trials

Just published in Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy.

Oosthoek et al. showed that:

1⃣ 44% (N = 121) of the trials employed fluid‐based biomarker endpoints among which the CSF ATN biomarkers (Aβ42/40, p/tTau) were used most frequently.…

'Time-saved' as novel outcome measure in trials

There's a growing trend to use 'time-saved' for assessing disease-modifying therapies (see Figure). This measure is proposed to be more intuitive as:

'11 months saved is more universally understood than a mean difference of 3.8…

Can the PET tracer [18F]PI2620 detect 4R tauopathy?

Just out as a preprint on BioRxiv.

Three main findings:

1⃣ Longitudinal imaging in a 4-repeat-tau mouse model (PS19) revealed elevated [18F]PI2620 PET signal in the presence of high neuronal tau.

2⃣ Regional [18F]PI2620…

Another failed Tau N-terminus binding antibody

Published in Neurology on March 12th 2024.

Zagotenemab* did not meet its primary, secondary and exploratory endpoints in a phase 2 clinical trial.

*Zagotenemab (LY3303560) is a humanized anti-tau antibody that binds the N-terminus…

Several important considerations highlighted in this new JAMA viewpoint discussing the safety and effectiveness of monoclonal antibodies targeting amyloid-β, such as Lecanemab and Donanemab.

Link > jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…

JAMA Madhav Thambisetty Robert Howard

When does Alzheimer’s disease start?
(i.e., their provocative title, not mine)

Recent preprint at Lancet Neurology

The main results of this large-scale analysis across 3 cohorts (n=1,088 w/4,383 Amyloid PET scans):

1⃣ There is a time window of ~16.5 years between crossing the…

Comparison of tau spread in people with Down syndrome versus autosomal-dominant Alzheimer’s disease

Published last week at Lancet Neurology.

The main finding was that at similar levels of amyloid pathology, people with Down syndrome had greater tau load compared with people…

Sex/gender differences in global disease burden

A systematic analysis just published The Lancet Public Health reveals stark differences in major causes of the 2021 disease burden between females and males.

E.g., Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia ranked 11th in females and…

WEEKEND POLL:

Time management: What is your default response to requests?