Psychiatry News & Articles

1 Late-life depression and risk of vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease: systematic review and meta-analysis of community-based cohort studies The British Journal of Psychiatry, May 3, 2013
Diniz BS et al. – The study aims to conduct a systematic review and meta–analysis to evaluate the risk of incident all–cause dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia in individuals with late–life depression in population–based prospective studies. Late–life depression is associated with an increased risk for all–cause dementia, vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The present results suggest that it will be valuable to design clinical trials to investigate the effect of ...

2 Diverging patterns of amyloid deposition and hypometabolism in clinical variants of probable Alzheimer’s disease Brain, February 1, 2013
Lehmann M et al. - The study assessed the relationship between amyloid deposition, glucose metabolism and clinical phenotype in Alzheimer’s disease, and investigated how these relate to the involvement of functional networks. The data suggest that Alzheimer’s disease syndromes are associated with degeneration of specific functional networks, and that fibrillar amyloid-β deposition explains at most a small amount of the clinico-anatomic heterogeneity in Alzheimer’s disease.

3 Reactive glia show increased immunoproteasome activity in Alzheimers disease Brain, May 13, 2013
Orre M et al. - The proteasome is the major protein degradation system within the cell, comprised of different proteolytic subunits; amyloid-β is thought to impair its activity in Alzheimer’s disease. Neuroinflammation is a prominent hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, which may implicate an activation of the immunoproteasome, a specific proteasome variant induced by immune signalling that holds slightly different proteolytic properties than the constitutive proteasome. Using a ...

4 Diagnostic performance of a combination of Mini-Mental State Examination and Clock Drawing Test in detecting Alzheimer's disease Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, May 13, 2013
Kato Y et al. - Because of the growing need for quick cognitive screening tests to distinguish Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from mild cognitive impairment (MCI), the authors compare the diagnostic performance of a combination of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and a Clock Drawing Test (CDT) to the Japanese version of the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive subscale (ADAS-J cog) in differentiating between patients with AD, patients with MCI, and healthy ...

5 Study Finds Late-Life Depression Associated with Increased Risk of Dementia UPMC, May 2, 2013
Late-life depression is associated with an increased risk for all-cause dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and, most predominantly, vascular dementia, according to the results of a new meta-analysis published today in the British Journal of Psychiatry. Previous studies have shown an association between depression and Alzheimer’s disease, but this is the first meta-analysis that specifically addresses the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia in older adults with ...

6 Reactive glia show increased immunoproteasome activity in Alzheimers disease Brain, May 10, 2013
Orre M et al. - The proteasome is the major protein degradation system within the cell, comprised of different proteolytic subunits; amyloid-β is thought to impair its activity in Alzheimer’s disease. This may serve as a potential novel approach to modulate sustained neuroinflammation and glial dysfunction associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

7 High Blood Sugar May Add to Alzheimer's Risk: Study HealthDay, May 9, 2013
Brain scans suggest possible link between the two. Elevated blood sugar levels may increase a person's risk for alzheimer's disease, according to a new study. Previous research has suggested that diabetes may be a risk factor for alzheimer's, but University of Arizona researchers wanted to examine if high blood sugar levels in people without diabetes may also increase the chances of developing alzheimer's. The study included 124 people, aged 47 to 68, who were diabetes-free and had ...

8 Phenotypic regional functional imaging patterns during memory encoding in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimers disease Alzheimer's & Dementia, May 6, 2013
Browndyke JN et al. - Reliable blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) phenotypic biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are likely to emerge only from a systematic, quantitative, and aggregate examination of the functional neuroimaging research literature. ALE consistencies broadly support the presence of frontal compensatory activity, medial temporal lobe activity alteration, and posterior ...

9 Risk disclosure and preclinical Alzheimers disease clinical trial enrollment Alzheimer's & Dementia, May 7, 2013
Grill JD et al. - The study aims to identify the facilitators and barriers to preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD) clinical trial recruitment, 50 cognitively normal participants were interviewed after being randomized to one of two hypothetical AD risk scenarios: the general age-related risk for AD, or being at 50% increased risk for AD.

10 Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation combined with cognitive training is a safe and effective modality for the treatment of Alzheimers disease: a randomized, double-blind study Journal of Neural Transmission, April 25, 2013
Rabey JM et al. – Cortical excitability can be modulated using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Previously, the authors showed that rTMS combined with cognitive training (rTMS–COG) has positive results in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The goal of this randomized double–blind, controlled study was to examine the safety and efficacy of rTMS–COG in AD. NPI improved non–significantly. In summary, the NeuroAD system offers a novel, safe and effective therapy for improving ...