Elliott Mufson on The mean A beta load in the hippocampus correlates with duration and severity of dementia in subgroups of Alzheimer disease.

COMMENT Interesting study. 0 emufson

Benjamin Wolozin on Cognitive tests that best discriminate between presymptomatic AD and those who remain nondemented.

COMMENT Predictive test? Could be important. 0 bwolozin

Nikolaos K. Robakis on The Drosophila beta-amyloid precursor protein homolog promotes synapse differentiation at the neuromuscular junction.

COMMENT This is an important finding as it suggests that APP may also have a role in synaptic structure or function. We should remember that AD is probably a synaptic disorder. 0 nikos.robakis

John Olney on Microsatellite polymorphism in the human heme oxygenase-1 gene promoter and its application in association studies with Alzheimer and Parkinson disease.

COMMENT Kimpara et al report finding a polymorphic feature of a promoter region of the human HO-1 gene and suggest that this may be a useful marker for studying certain human diseases. However, they apparently do not find evidence for particular alleles associate

Elliott Mufson on ApoE genotype does not affect plasma tPA and PAI-1 antigen levels.

COMMENT Interesting special issue (also see articles below). 0 emufson

Paul Coleman on Alzheimer neuropathologic alterations in aged cognitively normal subjects.

COMMENT 'Our study demonstrates that the brains of a large percentage of cognitively normal, relatively well-educated individuals contain numerous degenerative changes and only a small percentage are relatively free of these changes.' The changes referr

Hiroshi Mori on Apolipoprotein-E deficiency results in an altered stress responsiveness in addition to an impaired spatial memory in young mice.

COMMENT This is the first paper to show that APP is involved in cognitive function using ApoE KO mice. 0 mori

Hiroshi Mori on The Glu318Gly substitution in presenilin 1 is not causally related to Alzheimer disease.

COMMENT This site is the hot spot we have to conclude immediately. 0 mori

Hiroshi Mori on Analysis of the butyrylcholinesterase gene and nearby chromosome 3 markers in Alzheimer disease.

COMMENT This clearly denies the association of a gene near BCHE with AD. 0 mori

Benjamin Wolozin on Pro-apoptotic function of calsenilin/DREAM/KChIP3.

COMMENT The function of calcenilin is largely unknown. This article provides important new information about the function of this protein. The pro-apoptotic connection is particularly interesting because calcenilin binds to PS2, which is also implicated in apopto

Paul Coleman on Ancient mtDNA sequences in the human nuclear genome: a potential source of errors in identifying pathogenic mutations.

COMMENT More light on issues related to mt DNA in AD. This paper and the preceeding Hirano paper make a very interesting pair in relation to the earlier Dais paper. 0 Paul_Coleman

Nikolaos K. Robakis on An immunohistochemical study of centenarian brains: a comparison.

COMMENT It is important because it suggests a more general disturbance in protein processing in AD. The presence of huntingtin in NFTs is clearly secondary to the AD and suggest that the metabolism of many different proteins, not just APP or tau, is affected in A

Benjamin Wolozin on Beta-secretase processing in the trans-Golgi network preferentially generates truncated amyloid species that accumulate in Alzheimer's disease brain.

COMMENT This paper provides important information about BACE cleavage. It has been known for a long time that multiple Ab peptides consisting of X-38-42 are generated. This paper begins to look at the mechanism of generation of the X-38-42 peptides, and shows tha

Carl Cotman on Hereditary deficiencies in complement C5 are associated with intensified neurodegenerative responses that implicate new roles for the C-system in neuronal and astrocytic functions.

COMMENT Interesting 0 cwcotman

John Olney on Decreased expression of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor 1 messenger RNA in select regions of Alzheimer brain.

COMMENT The Ulas and Cotman article is of considerable interest in relation to a manuscript we will be publishing in the Archives of Neurology in October 1997 which sets forth a new hypothesis linking neurodegeneration in AD to a deficit in the NMDA receptor syst