MUST READS

A March 2, 2015 Time article reported that “scientists have found evidence of a protein found in Alzheimer’s disease, called amyloid, in the brains of people as young as 20.” According to the article, “The results show that the process responsible for causing Alzheimer’s begins as early as in the 20s, and it also pointed to a population of cells that are especially vulnerable to accumulating amyloid—essentially serving as a harbinger of future disease. “There is some characteristic of these neurons that allows amyloid to accumulate there more than in other neurons,” says Geula. “At least in this cell population, the machinery to form aggregates is there.” Reducing the amount of amyloid in the brains of young people might help halt the formation of Alzheimer’s, he says.”

A March 2, 2015 Washington Post article highlighted one woman’s struggle to get properly diagnosed with dementia. According to the article, “A retired psychiatrist, my mother had numerous advantages — education, resources and insurance — but, still, getting the right diagnosis took nearly 10 years. Each expert saw the problem through the narrow prism of a single specialty. Surgeons recommended surgery. Neurologists screened for common incurable conditions. The answer was under their noses, in my mother’s hunches and her family history. But it took a long time before someone connected the dots. My mother was using a walker by the time she was told she had a rare condition that causes gait problems and cognitive loss, and is one of the few treatable forms of dementia. The bad news was that it had taken so long to get the diagnosis that some of the damage might not be reversible.”

A March 2, 2015 The Hill opinion piece by By Reps. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.), Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) underscored the need to invest in supercomputing research to unlock economic and healthcare benefits. According to the authors, “We are calling on our colleagues in Congress to fund the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science in order to promote advancements in exascale computing. These machines will use processing speeds approaching that of the human brain to derive insights from massive and ever-expanding libraries of data. Thanks to successful, long-standing partnerships between the U.S. government, the technology industry, universities and the national laboratories, America already has made tremendous progress. We have studied the genetics of the brain to aid the fight against Alzheimer’s disease, and modeled the heart to predict drug responses. Another breakthrough is using brain-inspired computer chips the size of a postage stamp to help blind people navigate their surroundings. This technology is being shared with academics, students and corporate researchers so they can start experimenting with exciting new applications. The possibilities are limitless…Now, with big data holding the potential of untold breakthroughs, we cannot afford to fall behind other nations in the race to innovate. In the supercomputing race, America cannot afford to come in second.”

RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

A March 2, 2015 Bioscience Technology article reported that aged-related dementia may have an earlier origin in the heart and vascular system, not the brain. According to the article, “"Aged-related dementia is the result of undetected bleeding into the brain caused by the lifelong destructive effects of the heart's pulse on tiny blood vessels in the brain," said Jonathan Stone, Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Sydney. Together with colleagues from the University of Sydney and the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Stone led a recently published comprehensive review assessing the vascular explanation for age-dementia in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. "If we live to old age, the heart destroys us. That's the conclusion more scientist are beginning to take seriously," he said. "We propose that dementia is primarily vascular, caused by the destructive effect of the pulse on the cerebral blood vessels, with the loss of neurons and the pathology that Alois Alzheimer described over a century ago occurring secondarily to vascular breakdown.”

A March 2, 2015 The Dallas Morning News article reported that a new study from Northwestern University has found that “the brains of super-agers are much different from normal seniors.” According to the article, “Compared to the brains of normal seniors of similar ages, super-agers’ brains have a thicker region of the cortex, far fewer tangles (a primary indication of Alzheimer’s disease) and a large supply of neurons linked to higher social intelligence.”