In a landmark clinical trial, coordinated by the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study at UC San Diego, people at risk for Alzheimer's who exercised at low or moderate-high intensity showed less cognitive decline when compared to those receiving usual care.

While a comprehensive cure-all to these neurological conditions is unlikely, scientists are making headway into understanding their fundamental characteristics with the hope of preventing or alleviating cognitive and motor impairments. In a new study published in Science Advances, researchers from the Molecular Neuroscience Unit and the former Cellular and Molecular Synaptic Function Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have now discovered that ATP, which is most commonly thought of as the ‘fuel’ of our cells, plays a surprising role in relation to neurodegenerative diseases.

The total economic burden of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in the United States will reach $781 billion this year, finds a USC-led research team aiming to provide the most comprehensive accounting yet of dementia's growing economic toll.

If the protein TDP-43 is defective inside a nerve cell it can form neurotoxic aggregates, which are the cause of the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Nerve cells are also damaged by TDP-43 in Alzheimer's dementia. A research team led by Goethe University has now succeeded in preventing these aggregates by manipulating the protein so that it is transported to the cell's own repair system. The study was carried out as part of the Cluster4Future PROXIDRUGS. The cluster is researching a new class of drugs that reprogram cellular systems to render disease-relevant proteins harmless.