Characterized by periods of deep and profound depression alternating with periods of excessive mania mood swings with diminished sleep, bipolar spectrum disorder (BSD) affected an estimated 40 million people globally in 2019 in the U.S. with a major part of the problem attributed to delays in diagnosis including a mean time of 5-13 years. These delays in BSD diagnosis exert lifelong impacts including heightened suicide risk, relationship strains, impaired work/education performance, significant financial burdens and increased risk for cardiovascular disease.

Transplanted human glial cells could outcompete human glia in a chimeric mouse model of Huntington’s disease, inducing apoptosis. And younger health cells could outcompete older ones. The findings, which appeared online in Nature Biotechnology on July 17, 2023, help pave the way for testing glial cell transplantation as a therapeutic strategy in neurodegenerative disorders.

Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp. has released data supporting the memory- and cognition-enhancing effects of TNX-4300 (estianeptine), the single (S)-isomer of tianeptine in preclinical development for depression, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

Researchers from the University of Texas and University of Tennessee set out to determine if the long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) MALAT1 (metastasis associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1), which is known to regulate a subset of genes involved in synaptic plasticity, cognitive function and memory, plays an important role in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School, Yale University and University of Leiden have uncovered two new potential biomarkers of dysregulated glucose metabolism in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Glucose hypometabolism is consistently observed in AD but the molecular changes behind this are unclear. Findings from recent research have indicated dysregulation of glycolysis markers in AD cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and tissue.

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis reported data validating microtubule-binding region (MTBR) of tau containing the residue 243 (MTBR-tau243) as a new cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker specific for insoluble tau aggregates in Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Plasmalogens are a type of phospholipid that play significant roles in membrane fluidity and cellular processes such as vesicular fusion and signal transduction. Previous studies with natural plasmalogens have shown their role in neuroinflammation and memory function improvement.

There is a strong link between the loss of TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) function and the development of frontotemporal dementia (FTD)...

Researchers based at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have discovered that a lack of contact between mitochondria and lysosomes in the cells of patients with a genetic form of Parkinson’s disease likely contributed to their symptoms.