Industry Buzz
What you do with your body, how you care for your body can impact how you age, cognitively. The power of that is that it's accessible to everyone.
— Laura Baker, PhD
The blood test is going to democratize the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and make it accessible to everyone.
—Abhay R. Moghekar, MD
Dementia research hasn't slowed down in 2025—in fact, it’s picked up steam. The bulk of the progress centers on Alzheimer’s disease, which accounts for 60% to 80% of dementia cases. []
This year, researchers have made exciting strides in both diagnosis and treatment, as well as in unraveling the biology that drives the disease.
At the same time, prevention remains a powerful piece of the puzzle: About half of dementia cases may be preventable by addressing known risk factors, according to the 2024 Lancet Commission report. []
While none of these developments are a cure, they’re reshaping how physicians think about risk, detection, and intervention. Here are five of the most promising advances that should be on your radar in 2025.
Related: A new clue in Alzheimer’s could rewrite what we know about the diseaseLifestyle improvements could boost cognition
The U.S. POINTER trial—the largest of its kind—showed that a structured lifestyle program combining better nutrition, regular exercise, social connection, and health monitoring preserved memory and thinking over two years. []
Participants who made these lifestyle changes via a structured program performed cognitively as if they were one or two years younger, underscoring that multicomponent lifestyle changes can slow age-related brain decline and boost resilience. []
"What you do with your body, how you care for your body can impact how you age, cognitively," said Laura Baker, PhD, the study's lead investigator. "The power of that is that it's accessible to everyone."
Lithium may reverse Alzheimer's progression
Researchers from a study in Nature uncovered evidence that lithium naturally exists in the brain, plays a protective role in normal brain function, and that lithium depletion may be an early driver of Alzheimer’s pathology. []
In postmortem human brains and blood samples, lithium levels were markedly lower in individuals with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s compared to cognitively healthy controls.
The research team developed a novel lithium compound (lithium orotate) that is not sequestered by amyloid plaques. Giving this compound to Alzheimer’s model mice reversed pathology and restored memory, without toxicity, at very low doses.
Low doses of lithium orotate "basically seemed to sweep away the amyloid plaques," said Bruce Yankner, MD, Phd, neuroscientist and lead author of the study. "It also reduced the number of these structures called tangles, which are inside the brain cells, and are thought to actually compromise their function and lead to dementia. It reduced that. It reduced the inflammation in the brain, which is a very important feature of Alzheimer's and other degenerative brain diseases. And most importantly, it restored the memory of the mice."
There's a link between inflammation and Alzheimer's
A recent research article in Nature found a link between the gene variant APOE4 and chronic inflammation. People who have this gene variant also have an increased risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer's disease. []
"Inflammation just cannot be separated from the function of the brain," said Kendal Stewart, MD, an otolaryngologist who is a nationally renowned expert in neuro-immune syndromes.
There's a blood test for Alzheimer's
In May 2025, the FDA cleared the first in vitro diagnostic blood test intended to aid in Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis in adults 55 and older who are showing cognitive decline. The test had over 90% accuracy. []
"Until recently, it used to take months to get an accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease because the tests needed were either very complex or needed specialized centers. The blood test is going to democratize the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and make it accessible to everyone," said Abhay R. Moghekar, MD, associate professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Vaccines may reduce dementia risk
The shingles (varicella-zoster virus) vaccine may offer an unexpected benefit: lowering dementia risk. []Some large cohort studies show that among people aged 70+, those who’d received the shingles vaccine had lower rates of dementia compared to those who hadn’t. []
"This is all observational data, so we can’t say cause and effect. What we can say is there is growing observational data linking the shingles vaccine with a lower risk of dementia, and in this data the effect was more robust for women vs men," said Jen Gunter, MD, OB/GYN.