Welcome to your daily round-up of everything happening in the world of neurorehab.
Research
Racism linked to Alzheimer’s later in life
Racial discrimination experienced during midlife is associated with Alzheimer’s disease pathology, according to a new study from researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Georgia. The findings appear online today in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
New findings could improve stroke prognosis
Scientists say that measuring the brain’s ability to control its own blood flow using a bedside test could allow clinicians to give stroke patients and their families a clearer idea of how well they’ll go on to recover. In the largest study of its kind to investigate dynamic cerebral autoregulation, researchers compared results from 384 adults who had suffered ischemic stroke.
Mediterranean diet may have benefits for MS
New findings suggest the Mediterranean diet is a “promising nutritional intervention to slow down disease progression of MS and to minimize disease-related symptoms severity”.
Call for more focus on stroke risk in women
Stroke is the third leading cause of death for women in the United States. Someone’s risk of stroke increases as they age, and since women continue to live longer than men, they have more strokes over their lifetimes. However, a review found that the risk is more complex than what can be explained only by an increased lifespan, leading to calls for more research to address this knowledge gap.
Technology
Network analysis helps detect cognitive decline
Researchers have used a novel technique called network analysis to reveal the subtle changes associated with subjective cognitive decline that cannot be detected through standard test analyses.
By running a statistical analysis of data merged from two large Canadian data sets, the researchers were able to visualise the strength of relationships between the nodes among people who are classified as cognitively normal (CN), or who have diagnoses of subjective cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s.
Company updates
BrainStorm publishes findings from ALS research
BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics announced the peer-reviewed publication of Phase 3 biomarker data in Muscle and Nerve. The study suggests that debamestrocel or NurOwn®, an investigational cell therapy, may impact key biomarkers in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that are predictive of disease progression.
PharmAust receives approval for MND study
PharmAust has received approval from the human research ethics committee (HREC) at Sydney’s Macquarie University to start an open-label extension study of lead drug monepantel (MPL) on patients with motor neurone disease (MND) / amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
