Active clinical trials for "Alzheimer Disease"

The Infinitome Program from Omniscient has the ability to identify abnormal brain networks or connectomes using resting state functional MRI (rs-fMRI). This technology, which visualizes brain networks in three dimensions, was originally developed to ensure neurosurgeons avoid inadvertently lesioning cognitively eloquent brain regions during surgical operations. The potential of Infinitome in identifying connectome dysfunction for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease has yet to be explored. This diagnostic technique may play a critical role for identifying disease brain networks that may benefit from targeted interventions in clinical trials.

People diagnosed with young onset dementia are today mostly assigned to the same healthcare services as people developing dementia at an older age. They and their families are however in a quite different life situation, which is likely to generate different challenges and specific needs for tailored healthcare services, of importance in maintaining their perceived quality of life. The investigators of this study wish to assess the factors influencing these families' quality of life, their specific needs and their use of healthcare services by the use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The main aim of this study is to provide better future healthcare services to these families, and to develop a programme for optimal collaboration between specialist healthcare services and the local dementia teams.

Patients with memory disorders are experiencing different trends which are difficult to predict. Moreover, the distinction between Lewy body disease and Alzheimer's disease is not easy as both diseases can present similar symptoms. Nowadays, routine examinations exist and can improve the diagnosis but there are not specific enough of one of those two pathologies. Lewy body disease is characterized by the presence of particular structures in patient's brain, called "Lewy body", composed of a protein called "alpha-synuclein". The aim of this study is to measure the rate of alpha-synuclein in cerebrospinal fluid. This measurement could allow us to differentiate patient with Alzheimer's disease from those with Lewy body disease.

A Multicenter national prospective cohort study including at least 2300 individuals consecutively recruited from French Research Memory Centers and followed-up over 5 years.

According to estimations, Alzheimer's disease affects approximately 860,000 people aged of more than 65 years in France. This disease is characterized by disorders of cognitive functions, including memory, associated with structural and functional modifications of the brain. These changes are evolving within the pathology progression and can be evaluated with neuropsychological tests (to assess capabilities such as language, orientation, etc.) and also with brain imaging (e.g. MRI). Alzheimer's disease is still poorly understood, nevertheless currently available treatments can slow its development if the disease is diagnosed early enough. Thus, the objective is to identify markers for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, to better describe the evolution of this disease. The three main objectives of this project are to identify, compare and combine predictive markers of Alzheimer's disease to make a significant contribution to the understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease to study the ability of different neuroimaging techniques to follow the evolution of this pathology.

Genetics of mendelian forms of young onset Alzheimer Disease (GMAJ project) Introduction : Autosomal dominant forms of Alzheimer disease (AD) are characterized by young age of onset. In France the prevalence was estimated at around 1000 cases. The Phenotypical Expression: There is diversity in phenotypical expression, associating dementia, spastic paraplegia, early extrapyramidal syndrome, ataxia or stroke caused by severe cerebral amyloid angiopathy. Diversity in neuropathological expression is demonstrated by the presence of cotton wool plaques, Lewy bodies with Lewy neurites and severe cerebral amyloid angiopathy. The study of mendelian forms is decisive in the physiopathological comprehension of AD and related diseases, since the alteration of those genes involved is sufficient to cause the disease. In AD, identification of these genetic causes allows the formulation of the amyloid hypothesis, which is the basis of current therapeutic developments concerning the Ab peptide. Currently three genes (APP, PSEN1, PSEN2) are identified in early onset mendelian forms and their mutations are involved in 80% of the 139 French families, studied since 1993 within the framework of U614 and the National Reference Centre for Alzheimer Disease in young subjects (CNR-MAJ).These results are arguments in favor of the GMAJ project and have two main objectives: (i) to identify new genes in mendelian AD forms without detectable alteration on known genes. (ii) to correlate phenotypes and genotypes within families associated with known mutations and extend the description of the phenotypical spectrum. Population: Families eligible for this study are those with at least 2 individuals with AD criteria (clinical or neuropathological) with onset before 65 years of age. Duration of inclusion is 3 years. This multicentre study groups 23 clinical centres. The inclusion number is 50 new families per year. Method: Extension and description of families with unknown genetic causes, inclusion of novel families with autosomal dominant AD. The successive steps of the project are the following: (i) Thorough phenotypical characterization in order to document family history and characterize the probands and affected related subjects according to standardized protocol for clinical, neuropsychological, biological (biomarker determination in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid) and imaging data (MRI, TEMP). (ii) Identify known genetic causes (PSEN1/2, APP) with novel autosomal dominant families. (iii) Extend analysis of the pedigrees of families with unknown genetic causes. (iv) Identify novel genetic causes within these families which are negative for known mutations. This study uses 3 methods: pangenomic search is performed for microalterations (Copy Number Variants or CNV) by Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH) with high resolution (10 kb on average). potential targets are then validated by the study of large control populations, intrafamilial cosegregation and functional validation. the remaining families at the end of this stage will be characterized by means of high throughput sequencing of all exonic areas. (v) Follow up study of patients and siblings with 2 goals: evaluation of the disease course and consequences (individual, familial and social); occurrence of novel AD cases within the family. (vi) Neuropathological description with potential novel description of atypical AD cases. Results and consequences: Identification of novel genetic causes of AD are of importance in completing the mechanisms of the amyloidergic hypothesis. This project is useful to promote the guidelines on the genetic diagnosis of AD in France.

The main objective of this study is to investigate the central and peripheral inflammatory, as well as the spontaneous Aβ-specific, immune responses at the asymptomatic stage and early stages of AD by combining molecular imaging techniques with blood biomarker analyses. The early and preclinical stages of AD will be studied in the relatives of patients with PSEN1, PSEN2 or APP mutations that are at-risk (50%) to be mutation carriers. This study will evaluate the contribution of Inflammatory and immune anti-Aβ responses (I2ARs) in AD progression. Inclusion of sporadic and familial forms of AD will aid in studying the chronology of pathological events. Clinical follow-ups will be conducted annually for two years and will include an MRI and a blood draw on the last visit. We expect I2ARs to appear in the early stages of the disease and to constitute new prognostic factors. I2ARs could also become therapeutic markers for the assessment of novel anti-amyloid treatments and may offer new insights to the development of Aβ-specific immunotherapy strategies.

Reliable diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) at the predementia stage is currently considered to be a priority for research, as disease modifying therapies are being evaluated. Many studies focus on the functional and morphological assessment of the hippocampal formation. However, neurofibrillary tangles, associated with cognitive deficits, initially affect the anterior subhippocampal cortex (transentorhinal, entorhinal and perirhinal cortex) before reaching the hippocampus. Studies from our group have tried to investigate if the assessment of subhippocampal regions using cognitive tools and neuroimaging techniques could contribute to the diagnosis of AD at a very early stage. In a previous project, the investigators included 40 patients with single domain amnestic MCI (Mild Cognitive Impairment), known to be at high risk for AD and demonstrated that aMCI patients with a profile of subhippocampal dysfunction (impaired performance on a visual recognition memory task) display other clinical as well as imaging profiles of patients with early AD using MRI and SPECT. Longitudinal follow-up data in these patients is currently under way. Preliminary data indicates that evaluating the subhippocampal region using visual recognition tasks is highly predictive of AD over 6 years. The aim of this project is to obtain additional diagnostic data using a PET amyloid tracer (Florbetapir F18 AV45 F18), an in-vivo marker of one of the neuropathological lesions that define AD, of in order to enhance diagnostic accuracy AD in these patients. This approach will validate the hypothesis as to whether the assessment of subhippocampal dysfunction can contribute to the early diagnosis of AD.

The purpose of this study is to assess the performance of AclarusDx™, an investigational blood test detecting gene expression information, and intended to help physicians in making an Alzheimer's Disease diagnosis in patients having memory impairments.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) has a prolonged prodromal phase before the stage of dementia. Subtle executive cognitive function deficits can be detected at this early pre-dementia phase, more than 10 years before dementia. Among them, the digit symbol substitution task (DSST) has been shown to be altered very early, up to 13 years before dementia. This test, as many others executive function tests, requires a fine control of visuomotor coordination. Like executive functions, eye movements, particularly voluntary-guided saccades, are under the control of the frontal lobe and fronto-parietal networks. Previous studies have shown a deterioration of voluntary saccades in AD using various paradigms. There are no data in prodromal AD, although the pathological process of the disease affects very early brain structures implicated in saccades execution (eg. caudate nucleus and pre-cuneus).