Acetylcholine has different effects on the excitability of different neuronal types, according to work by Xiang, et al, published in today's Science. The researchers examined two subtypes of interneurons in layer V of rat visual cortex...
Maybe it is time to give up steak in order to live longer—at least if you are a fruit fly. According to a study published today in Science, a diet of sugar keeps flies in a metabolic "waiting mode," in which both reproduction and death rates are low...
An enzyme in <em>Caenorhabditis elegans</em> affects the rate at which the dainty worms age, by modulating the cellular response to oxidative stress...
Because presenilin was discovered in positional cloning experiments involving large familial Alzheimer's disease kindreds, there were no previous data concerning its biological function. As a result...
A study published last year by Margaret Pericak-Vance et al. (JAMA 1997;278) reported a putative locus for late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) at chromosome 12p11-12, and set off a race to confirm and nail down the gene...
Yamaguchi (Abstract 1245) presented his theory that very diffuse plaques within nondemented individuals are cleared by astrocytic phagocytosis. He showed many examples of very diffuse Aβ-positive staining...
A new epidemic of "mad tau disease" swept Amsterdam at the workshop on Hereditary Fronto-Temporal Dementia and Pick's disease. Fronto-temporal dementia and
Parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17...
While a number of drug companies have been pumping big bucks into creating novel molecules capable of inhibiting formation of Aβ fibrils, along comes Alan Snow and his colleagues...
If you came to Amsterdam hoping to hear a lot of new data on Aβ peptide inhibitors, you might have learned more by window shopping in the red-light district...
Over a decade ago, John Blass and his colleagues proposed that AD was caused by compromised metabolism. Today, this theory has gained support from a convergence of numerous...
The focus of this symposium was the biology and diagnostic value of a recently discovered protein, termed AD7c-neuronal thread protein (NTP), in Alzheimer's disease...
The "great amyloid debate" appeared to resolve at least one issue in the rather contentious arena of defining the critical neuropathological events in AD...
Aβ's fibril-formation processes were revealed in a tour de force of atomic force microscopy by Harper (Abstract 909). The initial species to be detected are four nm globular assemblies...
Three abstracts presented during this session, as well as those by Vincent et al. (Abstract 594) and Arendt et al. (Abstract 595), indicate that cell cycle and mitotic mechanisms may be a key factor in the understanding of tau phosphorylation...
This roundtable session, supported by a grant from SmithKline Beecham and cochaired by G. Wilcock (Bristol, UK) and R. Kumar (Essex, UK), sought to provide a glimpse of future directions for the development of new therapeutic agents for AD...