Hiroshi Mori

Osaka City University Medical School
Abenoku, Japan

Andreas Papassotiropoulos

University of Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland

John Ciallella

Cephalon, Inc
West Chester, United States

Emory Hill

Screen, Inc.
Seattle, United States

Karen Duff on Adenovirus-Mediated Local Modification of Brain Genotype

COMMENT I think this is a good paper, and it adds to our transgenic toolbelt. It may, for example, allow us to turn pathology and off, to see if lesions such as plaques can be resolved once the source (e.g., elevated Aβ from an AβPP or PS1 transgene) is removed.

Richard Harvey on EU Committee Recommends Approval Of Memantine

COMMENT The Alzheimer's Society in the UK welcomes all new advances in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Memantine is a drug that has been used for many years in Germany, and will now shortly have a Europe-wide license. Memantine works by blocking t

Bruce Yankner on Down and In—the Location of Amyloid-β Does Matter

COMMENT One problem in the Bahn et al. paper is that it lacks confirmation that these changes occur with real Down's syndrome cells, like primary neurons or astrocytes in culture, or in the Down's brain. When they looked at the expression of the AβPP ge

Jorge Busciglio on Want to Keep Your DNA in Good Repair? Then Eat Your Spinach!

COMMENT Data obtained in the recent prospective epidemiological studies of Wolf et al. and in our studies of a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease (AD) provide a strong case for folic acid supplementation as a preventative approach for AD. The study of the Fr

Kiminobu Sugaya on Down and In—the Location of Amyloid-β Does Matter

COMMENT This study shows very similar results to what we reported at the last Neuroscience meeting in San Diego. We found that secreted-type AβPP dose-dependently increased glial differentiation of normal human neural stem cells, and that transfection of the wild

David Holtzman on Want to Keep Your DNA in Good Repair? Then Eat Your Spinach!

COMMENT In this prospective study, Seshadri et al. measured plasma homocysteine levels in normal elderly individuals and then followed the same individuals for eight years and reassessed their clinical status as well as homocysteine levels. They found that plasma

Thomas Beach on Revise Mechanism for Alzheimer's Drug? Acetylcholine Increased in Earliest Stage of Disease

COMMENT The study by DeKosky does not allow for conclusions about whether or not the cholinergic deficit is present at early stages of AD. The data show that there are differences in ChAT activity between a "no cognitive impairment" (NCI) group and a &q

Steven DeKosky on Revise Mechanism for Alzheimer's Drug? Acetylcholine Increased in Earliest Stage of Disease

COMMENT Authors' Reply We appreciate Dr. Beach's comment on our publication, and his comments concerning a suggested relationship between cholinergic deficits and amyloid pathology. However, he has misinterpreted our (DeKosky et al., 2002) and Davis et

Rudy Tanzi on Single Gene May Influence Onset of Both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

COMMENT The new genome screen on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases reported by Pericak-Vance et al. is a very interesting and provocative paper using age-at-onset (AAO) as a quantitative trait to search for novel AD and PD genes. The most interesting

Li-Huei Tsai on Disputing the Dismuting—What Is the Real Role of SOD in ALS?

COMMENT The paper by Subramaniam et al. demonstrates for the first time that chaperone-mediated copper loading is not required for mutant SOD protein to produce ALS-like disease. Mutant SOD protein-mediated motor neuron disease was not affected in the absence of

Giulio Pasinetti on NO-Releasing NSAID Reduces b-Amyloid, Activates Microglia

COMMENT This paper presents data suggesting that chronic use of a NO-releasing NSAID attenuates Aβ plaque load in an animal model of Aβ neuropathology. Additionally, the data indicate that the efficacy of this NO-releasing NSAID was mediated by microglia activati