Active clinical trials for "Alzheimer Disease"

The Alzheimer's and Blood Glucose Levels Study is researching the differences in blood glucose levels between people with and without Mild Cognitive Impairment or Alzheimer's disease with the aim of early detection of Alzheimer's Disease.

A 12-month pilot study will be comprised of two groups of people diagnosed with mild Alzheimer's disease and related dementia for a total of 80 senior subjects. Subjects will be randomly assigned to two groups: Group 1 users will play games with and administered by Ryan, 2-3 times a week and 30-minutes per day. Group 2 (Active Control Group) will play solitary games and activities but will have to interaction with Ryan. The team will measure the changes and improvement in the social/emotional well-being of these two groups and eventual changes in the cognitive/memory functions of elderly people living in the similar environment.

The purpose of this study is to compare average methylation of epigenetic markers on genomic DNA and some genes (APP, BACE, LRP, SorL1) involved in cerebral amyloid homeostasis: Of obese young adults and healthy young adults Of obese young adults and individuals affected by Alzheimer's disease (AD) having been obese at young adult age (<50 years old) or individuals affected by Alzheimer's disease (AD) having never been obese. The secondary purpose is to determine if there is an association between the frequency of these epigenetic markers and elements associated to the metabolic syndrome (lipidic and glycemic analysis, leptinemia, inflammation markers) and clinical ones (visceral fat mass, body mass index) in young adults.

The present study aims at combining biochemical methods with various types of imaging techniques to identify the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The main interest is to find markers associated with the very early steps in the pathology of this disease. The investigators shall thus screen for i) molecules in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and plasma specific for AD, and ii) brain imaging markers (e.g. MRI and PET) that correlate to detailed clinical assessments. Biomarkers of interest would then be useful to: Enable accurate detection of the disease early on. Such biomarkers need to specifically reflect the very early pathophysiology of AD and distinguish it from disorders with similar symptomatology, such as other types of dementia and major depression. The sensitivity and specificity of these biomarkers in combination with clinical assessment should be of at least 90%. Enable prediction of the course of events of the disease, such as the disease rate in individual patients. Biomarkers that can predict the pattern of future symptoms will be extremely valuable. Allow monitoring of early effects of new disease-modifying therapies (so-called surrogate biomarkers). Currently clinical therapeutic trials for AD require large patient groups together with long-term treatment. Both size of the groups and treatment time will be reduced with the help of surrogate biomarkers. Study the pathogenesis of the disease. Biomarkers can be used to investigate in detail early alterations in AD patients. For instance, changes in the levels of certain molecules in CSF together with genetic predisposition could then be correlated to clinical signs and changes detectable by brain imaging. This can lead to identification of new therapeutic targets that could easily be monitored in future trials.

The close homology between the central and enteric nervous systems suggests that a disease process affecting the central nervous system could also involve its enteric counterpart. The investigators have recently shown in that the enteric neurons can be readily analyzed using routine colonic biopsies. This led us to propose that the enteric nervous system could represent a unique window to assess the neuropathology in living patients with a neurodegenerative disorder. The investigators have already used this approach to show that Parkinson's disease pathology was recapitulated in a single colonic biopsy. By contrast to Parkinson's disease, the detection of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology in the enteric neurons has so far failed. This may be due to the low number of human tissue samples in addition to the low sensitivity of the immunohistochemical methods that were used. The aim of the current research project will be therefore to reevaluate AD pathology in a large number of human colonic samples using both a morphological and biochemical approach . The enteric nervous system could represent a unique window to assess the neuropathology in living patients with AD. This might open the way to the development of novel AD biomarkers that will directly assess the neuropathological process. Main Aim : To Analyze the presence of beta-amyloid pathology in the enteric nervous system (ENS) in AD patients Secondary Aim(s): To analyze and describe the presence of tau in the enteric nervous system (ENS) in AD patients To assess neuronal loss in submucosal tissue in AD patients. To examine Glia cells in the enteric nervous system in AD patients..

This Observational protocol will attempt to verify two recent and very critical concepts in ALZ Clinical Research by studying high-risk individuals who already are taking medications which may prevent the onset of ALZ. It may be possible to determine the future development of ALZ in a preclinical state in a cognitively normal but high risk individual at least 18-24 months before any symptoms develop of cognitive impairment. Early treatment of these cognitively normal high-risk persons with subclinical pre-ALZ can prevent of delay the occurrence and severity of ALZ. Caveats Neither this protocol nor the fMRI imaging are designed or intended to diagnose or treat ALZ, nor develop or use medications or diagnostic neuroimaging outside of already approved and accepted parameters. Persons who volunteer to be study subjects in this observational protocol will be under the care of their primary care / specialty physician, who will order tests and treatments as they see appropriate. Although there is a very large body of peer-reviewed scientific literature demonstrating that certain functional MRI patterns are associated with certain neurologic conditions, the utilization of fMRI for the evaluation of neurologic disorders is still considered an emerging science and therefore in the investigational stage. Although this protocol will report on brain patterns of certain neurologic conditions such as cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease, based on patterns published in peer-reviewed journals, such findings are not considered stand alone or diagnostic per se and should always be considered by the PMD in conjunction with the patient's clinical condition. These data should only be used as additional information to add to the PMD's diagnostic impression.

The goal of this project is to develop an early diagnostic test for Alzheimer's disease (AD) by monitoring loss of neurons and brain size reductions over a period of five years.

The aim of our study is the analysis of sleep phases and quality as well as the detection of respiratory pauses in subjects with cognitive disorder. To assess whether sleep quality is associated with the blood-brain barrier and Alzheimer's disease, which may be indicative of an early, non-invasively measurable change in brain activity in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

The purpose of this study is to use a functional MRI (fMRI) index to compare the brain activity of healthy volunteers to that of people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease. The ultimate goal is to develop an early diagnostic tool for Alzheimer's disease. The study hypotheses are: The fMRI index will differentiate between Alzheimer's disease, non-Alzheimer's dementia, and healthy volunteers; The fMRI index will distinguish participants with MCI who convert to Alzheimer's disease from those who convert to a non-Alzheimer's dementia and those who remain stable; MCI participants with a lower fMRI index at baseline who convert will progress to Alzheimer's sooner than those with a higher fMRI index, and MCI participants with a faster rate of fMRI index decline who convert will have an earlier onset of Alzheimer's disease.

This trial is investigating if serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) use in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) patients will lead to a lower rate of progression to dementia. It's hypothesized that patients treated with an SSRI at the time of MCI diagnosis, without evidence of an active primary psychiatric condition other than neurocognitive disorder, will have a lower rate of progression to Alzheimer's disease dementia or to other types of dementia.