A landmark study led by researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School has created the first comprehensive, quantitative molecular map of tau protein across multiple neurodegenerative diseases, revealing that each condition is defined by a distinct chemical signature. Published in Cell, the study uses a molecular framework and machine learning to rank chemical changes identified as disease-specific diagnostics and precision drug targets for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

New research by UCLA Health and UC San Francisco has uncovered why certain brain cells are more resilient than others to the buildup of a toxic protein that is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, potentially leading to new targets for therapies or treatments.

Signs of Sir Terry Pratchett’s dementia may have been present in his writing a decade before his official diagnosis, new research has found.

Researchers examined the "lexical diversity" – a measure of how varied an author’s word choices are – of 33 books from Pratchett's Discworld series, focusing specifically on his use of nouns and adjectives.

The study found that Pratchett’s language in “The Lost Continent”, written almost 10 years before his diagnosis of Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA), a rare form of Alzheimer's, showed a significant decline in the complexity of the language used compared to his previous works. 

Memory dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease may be linked to impairment in how the brain replays our recent experiences while we are resting, according to a new study in mice by University College London (UCL) scientists.

Researchers at UC San Francisco have identified a hazardous waste collector in the brain that disposes of the toxic clumps of tau protein that can lead to dementia.