- There is still no cure for the most common type of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease.
- The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now approved two new drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease in the United States, but repeated clinical trials have failed to demonstrate their efficacy in reducing symptoms.
- Energy metabolism is known to change in the aging brain.
- Now, a group of researchers have proposed that changes in the mitochondria that occur before beta-amyloid plaques appear could play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
Controversy has marred Alzheimer’s research over the past year due to disagreements about the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) accelerated approval of two drugs for the condition.
Alzheimer’s disease is a debilitating condition characterized by memory loss, but it also affects language and a person’s responses to their environment, according to the
Two drugs recently approved by the FDA for Alzheimer’s — aducanumab and lecanemab — are
As clinical trials have not conclusively shown that these drugs improve Alzheimer’s symptoms, some researchers are asking if different targets for the pharmaceutical treatment of Alzheimer’s disease need to be considered.
For new targets to be identified, researchers need to explore other mechanisms underpinning the development of the condition.
One of those potential mechanisms concerns changes in energy metabolism. The brain uses up around 25% of the energy our body uses, and disruption to this can affect its ability to function normally.
A team of researchers based at the Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden, recently demonstrated that changes in the mitochondria—the powerhouse of the cell—can lead to…
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