By measuring the presence of 10 compounds the researchers could predict with 90% accuracy people that would go on to suffer from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer's (AD).
"The lipid panel was able to distinguish with 90% accuracy these two distinct groups: cognitively normal participants who would progress to MCI or AD within two to three years, and those who would remain normal in the near future," said one of the study's authors, Professor Howard Federoff.
"Our novel blood test offers the potential to identify people at risk for progressive cognitive decline and can change how patients, their families and treating physicians plan for and manage the disorder."
Read the article in The Guardian, March 9, 2014
"Now you can find out using a new system that peers into the storm of activity in real-time. The technology, dubbed ‘Glass Brain’, was developed by neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley and Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life. It combines virtual reality, brain scanning and brain recording allowing the user to journey through their mind. The technology could be used to help people with brain injuries make a faster recovery"
MailOnline, March 14, 2014
Will organic and cybernetic lifeforms become increasingly intertwined in a positive way, or will computers become our rivals, take all our jobs and eventually wipe us all out?
Stuart Armstrong, a philosopher and Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford, UK, feels Artificial Intelligence may not necessarily turn against its creators, but thinks we should be aware of, and prepared for, the risks.
Read the interview with Stuart Armstrong, The Next Web, March 8, 2014
Professor Peter St George-Hyslop explains how Alzheimer’s disease affects those with the condition and outlines the consortium’s strategy to uncover the molecular mechanisms by which accumulation of amyloid beta and/or tau leads to death of brain cells in AD and related neurodegenerative disorders.
Read about the research programme of Prof. St George-Hyslop and his team to discover the molecular mechanics of how genes and environmental effects lead to the death of nerve cells in the brain.
Prof. JOHN HARDY, 2014 laureate, and his team identified the very first gene that can cause early onset of Alzheimer’s disease, which appears well before the age of 65. He now hopes to make a similar breakthrough in the study of late onset Alzheimer’s.
"We would like to discover the genetic risk factors for late onset Alzheimer ’s disease. It would help us break the disease into different sub-types. This is important because ultimately each sub-type might respond to different forms of treatment and different regimes of prevention.
We suspect a rich interplay between genetic and environmental factors. We do get worse at metabolising the amyloid protein as we get older, so if we have a mutation in the amyloid gene responsible for making it, that might be enough to push us over the edge."
Read the article in Brain Research Trust
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