Tag Archives: research

Alzheimer’s Disease Progress Report: A Deeper Understanding

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Check out this very informative report on Alzheimer’s Disease…

Go to  http://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publication/2010-alzheimers-disease-progress-report-deeper-understanding

The National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the Federal Government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has primary responsibility for basic, clinical, behavioral, and social research in Alzheimer’s disease, aimed at finding ways to treat and, ultimately, prevent this disease. The Institute’s Alzheimer’s disease research program is integral to its mission, which is to enhance the health and well-being of older people. This 2010 Progress Report on Alzheimer’s Disease summarizes Alzheimer’s research conducted or supported by the NIA and other components of NIH, including: Continue reading →

Blood-brain Barrier Breached

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Cornell University researchers may have solved a 100-year puzzle: How to safely open and close the blood-brain barrier so that therapies to treat Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and cancers of the central nervous system might effectively be delivered.
- ScienceDaily – Sep. 13, 2011

This research was performed on mice; however, researchers have already found that humans like mice produce a molecule called adenosine and findings show that adenocine receptors can be activated to open and close the blood-brain barrier in both mice as well as humans. This means drug therapies, which currently are blocked on a molecular level by the blood-brain barrier, could be allowed to pass through increasing their effectiveness.

Adenosine has previously been FDA-approved for use in humans (currently for heart imaging). Could this provide a shortcut for researchers and drug developers?  It will be interesting to see.

Read the Science Daily article here: Breaching the blood-brain barrier: Finding may permit drug delivery to the brain for Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis and brain cancers.