Alzheimer's Information Bulletin

Alzheimer’s Disease: Curated News and Resources

Kelly Teal

Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute Researchers Looking for Alzheimer’s Candidates

They continue to conduct ground-breaking studies using focused ultrasound and magnetic stimulation

Researchers at West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute are looking for more Alzheimer’s patients to take part in clinical trials involving ultrasound and virtual reality.

Requirements for the ultrasound studies are more stringent and exclusive than those for the virtual reality, or magnetic stimulation, tests.

“We’re looking for early-stage Alzheimer’s patients, so there is very specific criteria,” Ali Rezai, M.D., neurosurgeon and director of the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, told WVNews. “We’ve had many, many people who have contacted us for the ultrasound study, but only a few passed the initial screening criteria.”

The virtual reality study, on the other hand, features broader specifications, Rezai said, “so that one will be much easier to get into.”

About a year ago, the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute reported successful phase II ultrasound trial results. That’s when investigators opened the blood-brain barrier using technology from Israeli company INSIGHTEC. The procedure requires no incisions or pharmaceuticals because it relies on sound waves. It works when doctors inject microscopic bubbles into the patient’s bloodstream and expose those bubbles to focused ultrasound. The bubbles then temporarily open the blood-brain barrier in the brain area being targeted.

Researchers are hopeful the new treatment is leading the way toward treating Alzheimer’s, which so far has no known cure. They continue to evaluate whether focused ultrasound reduces the debilitating plaques and cognitive decline that signify Alzheimer’s. It will take several years before experts fully understand whether focused ultrasound will have a permanent place in Alzheimer’s therapy.

People interested in learning more about participating in the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute’s Alzheimer’s studies will want to call 304-293-5150 or email WVURNI@hsc.wvu.edu. Only the personnel directly involved with the research will be privy to patient information.

The WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute research team poses with the first-ever Alzheimer’s focused ultrasound patient moments after the procedure is complete in October 2018.
Photo by WVU Medicine.

UCSF Scientists: Too Much Daytime Sleep Could Mean Alzheimer’s Will Develop

The tau brain protein may be to blame

Finding yourself (or a loved one) sleeping more than normal during the day, even after a night of decent rest? New research from University of California San Francisco scientists indicates this may stand out as an early Alzheimer’s warning signal.

It all could boil down to damage from a specific brain protein called tau. The findings contrast with other, more comprehensive research that has looked at the amyloid protein as a key Alzheimer’s culprit.

“Our work shows definitive evidence that the brain areas promoting wakefulness degenerate due to accumulation of tau – not amyloid protein – from the very earliest stages of the disease,” study senior author Lea T. Grinberg told UCSF’s news team.

In other words, the research suggests that Alzheimer’s disease may target and attack the parts of the brain that keep people awake during the day – years before Alzheimer’s actually appears. This underscores the multifaceted nature of Alzheimer’s disease, Jun Oh, lead author of the study and research associate at UCSF’s Grinberg Lab, told Newsweek.

“When people, especially outside of the medical field, hear about Alzheimer’s disease, they only think about memory problems,” Oh said. “However, over the past few years, our lab and many others have shown that neuropsychiatric symptoms, especially problems related to sleep and wakefulness, arise in Alzheimer’s disease, even before cognitive decline.”

Grinberg and her associates reached their conclusions after analyzing the brain tissue from 20 postmortem patients, 13 of whom had Alzheimer’s disease; the remaining seven had healthy brains and served as the control population.

These new observations certainly don’t provide much comfort to anyone worried about developing Alzheimer’s, especially when the data show that the disease strikes someone in the United States every 65 seconds. But just because you or a loved one is sleeping more than usual may not mean Alzheimer’s is imminent.

First try to understand whether the new sleep pattern qualifies as a neuropsychiatric symptom. According to MDedge, some neuropsychiatric issues tied to Alzheimer’s – including auditory and visual hallucinations, delusions, depression, anxiety, psychosis, psychomotor agitation, aggression, apathy, repetitive questioning, wandering, socially or sexually inappropriate behaviors, and sleep disturbances – may be reversible.

The Alzheimer’s Association also discusses managing sleep changes and recommends starting with interventions that do not rely on drugs.

Of course, what defines excessive daytime napping may vary from one person to another. Note, though, that the National Sleep Foundation recommends napping for no more than 30 minutes per day to achieve a state of alertness. UCSF’s Grinberg told Newsweek that feeling sleepy, napping or simply sleeping more during the day, and getting fragmented sleep during the night due to waking up all stand out as changes that may occur long before Alzheimer’s crops up. On the whole, if daytime napping has consistently grown problematic, scheduling an evaluation makes sense.