RedScrubs
The Resource for Medical Professionals

Diabetics have a significantly greater risk of dementia, both Alzheimer’s disease - the most common form of dementia - and other dementia, reveals important new data from an ongoing study of twins.

For patients with Alzheimer’s disease, antipsychotic medications substantially increase one-year mortality risk, researchers found. Patients continued on their antipsychotic medications were 42% more likely to die over a one year period than those switched to a placebo. This is a significant finding. Researchers recommend replacing the antipsychotic therapy with psychological management and, for some symptoms, the addition of memory enhancing drugs such as Namenda or antidepressants such as Celexa.

A common form of dementia often mistaken for Alzheimer’s can be prevented with good health habits, a new report says.

Vascular cognitive impairment (VCI), the second most common cause of dementia, occurs in up to 4 percent of Americans over age 65 and up to 20 percent of those with some form of dementia. Brain damage from multiple small strokes, which can occur from narrowing or blocked arteries in the brain, are often the cause of VCI.

Almost one in five young American adults has a personality disorder that interferes with everyday life, and even more abuse alcohol or drugs, researchers reported Monday in the most extensive study of its kind.

A study published in the online advance edition of The American Journal of Psychiatry for the first time reveals shape differences in the brains of children with ADHD, which could help pinpoint the specific neural circuits involved in the disorder.

In a study that could have significant consequences for neural tissue transplantation strategies, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report that inactivating a specific gene in adult neural stem cells makes nerve cells emerging from those precursors form connections in the wrong part of the adult brain. The nice part of this story is that it emerged from a systems genetics approach, and it continues efforts to apply genetic analysis to find chromosomal regions harboring genes that may play a critical role in neurogenesis.

Scientists at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine have linked insomnia to a neurochemical abnormality in the brain. The study, which is the first one to link a specific neurochemical abnormality with insomnia, found that gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the most common inhibitory transmitter in the brain, is reduced by nearly 30% in people who have been suffering from primary insomnia for more than six months. The study limitation included few participants, but the participants ranged in age from 25-55 and consisted of both male and female subjects. A matched control group was included and subjects were adjusted for age, body mass index and gender. According to the study summary, many of the drugs used to treat sleep disorders act as benzodiazepine receptor antagonists, which increase activity at the GABA neurons. The full study may be reviewed in the current issue of the journal Sleep.

Multiple sclerosis affects over 400,000 Americans. Now two drugs show promise in treating this disease. Oral fumurate, or BG00012 (an experimental drug) and Campath (a leukemia drug) substantially reduce symptoms in relapse-remitting multiple sclerosis. Although effective, a second trial showed that Camuth had significant side-effects such as bleeding problems, a greater risk of thyroid disorder and a higher incidence of infections. Longer term, phase III trials are already underway with BG00012 to see if the relapse prevention is enough to recommend the drug.