Neurodegenerative Disorders Archives

Alzheimer’s Capillary Blood Biomarkers Correlated With Cognition

May 17, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in Nature Communications found that self-administered finger-prick blood tests for phosphorylated tau 217 (p-tau217), an Alzheimer’s tau marker, and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), an astrocyte-injury marker, correlated with cognition and function in older adults. Key Findings Remote sampling: Participants used capillary finger-prick blood collection rather than standard clinic-based venous blood …

Anxiety in ALS Was Driven Mostly by Depression Symptoms

May 17, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 BJPsych Open study found clinically significant anxiety in about 18% of non-demented ALS patients for state anxiety and 14% for trait anxiety, with anxiety scores driven mainly by cognitive-affective depression symptoms rather than motor severity. Key Findings ALS cohort: The study compared 433 non-demented ALS patients with 313 healthy controls. State anxiety: …

White Matter Hyperintensities Tracked ALS Progression and Survival

May 17, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint found that white matter hyperintensity (WMH) burden, the amount of MRI-visible white-matter injury, was greater and progressed faster in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), with progression tied to worse motor and cognitive scores. Key Findings 369-person MRI sample: Researchers analyzed 204 ALS patients and 165 healthy controls from the Canadian ALS …

GLP-1 Agonists Showed Dose-Specific ON-Medication Motor Effects in Parkinson’s Disease

May 16, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 systematic review and exploratory network meta-analysis of 5 randomized trials in Neurological Sciences found dose-specific ON-medication motor improvements, measured while usual Parkinson’s drugs were active, for some GLP-1 receptor agonists, glucose-related metabolic hormone drugs, in Parkinson’s disease, but broader motor, non-motor, and quality-of-life evidence remained limited. Key Findings 5 randomized trials: The …

Targeted Memory Reactivation Changed Sleep Waves But Not Motor Retention in Parkinson’s

May 16, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint found that targeted memory reactivation (TMR), replaying learned sounds during non-REM sleep, changed spindle and slow-wave density during a nap but did not improve motor memory retention in Parkinson’s disease or healthy older adults. Key Findings Parkinson’s and healthy older adults were compared: The experiment included 20 people with Parkinson’s …

NDST3 Suppression Restored Lysosomal Acidification in Alzheimer’s Models

May 15, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in Translational Neurodegeneration found that reducing NDST3, a microtubule deacetylase that affects lysosome acidity, restored lysosomal acidification and reduced amyloid-beta and tau pathology in Alzheimer’s cell and mouse models. Key Findings Lysosomal pH shifted back: APP695Swe-overexpressing HT22 cells had lysosomal pH near 5.6, while Ndst3 knockdown lowered it to less than …

Olfactory MRI Radiomics Linked pTau217 to Alzheimer’s Cognition

May 15, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 article-in-press study in Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy found that olfactory-region MRI radiomics, a method that turns brain scans into quantitative texture and shape features, linked blood pTau217, a tau-related Alzheimer’s disease biomarker, with cognitive impairment across three cohorts. Key Findings Three Alzheimer’s cohorts were matched: Researchers matched 122 Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients …

Alzheimer’s AI Model Improved Disease Progression Prediction

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 machine-learning study found that the final SNP-NF model in PLOS One reported mAUC 0.965, recall 0.929, and precision 0.929, while the study reported gains of about 3% in mAUC, 1% in precision, and 0.7% in recall versus their previous neural-process model. Key Findings SNP-NF performance was high: The final model reported mAUC …

Oral Arginine Reduced Amyloid-Beta Pathology in Two Mouse Models of Alzheimer’s Disease

May 15, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2025 study in Neurochemistry International from Kindai University showed that oral arginine, a naturally occurring amino acid, blocked the formation of toxic amyloid-beta aggregates in lab tests and reduced amyloid pathology in two well-established mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease — with the authors flagging that the research-grade doses and methods are not equivalent …

Acute and Post-Acute Settings Initiated Most Cognition-Altering Prescriptions in Older Adults With Dementia

May 14, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in JAMA Network Open analyzed Medicare claims for adults 66+ from 2008 to 2021 and found that cognition-altering medications — antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, hypnotics, anticholinergics — were disproportionately initiated in emergency rooms, hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities rather than doctors’ offices, especially in dementia patients (43% of antipsychotic starts vs 22% of …

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