2014 Nobel price awarded discovery opens window onto Alzheimer's disease

(Reuters) - The discovery of cells in the brain that act as the body's internal global positioning system, which won three scientists the Nobel Prize for medicine on Monday, opens an intriguing new a window onto dementia.
Since these spatial cells are among the first to be hit in Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia -- explaining why sufferers often lose their way -- understanding how they are degraded should shed important light on the disease process.
That is the belief of British-American researcher John O'Keefe, winner of the 2014 prize alongside Norwegians May-Britt and Edvard Moser, who plans to take his research to the next level as director of a new brain institute in London.
"We're now setting up to do much more high-tech studies where we hope to follow the progression of disease over time," he told reporters after hearing he would share the 8 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million) prize.
"This will give us the first handle as to when and where the disease starts and how we can attack it at a the molecular and cellular level."
The battle against Alzheimer's has been long and frustrating. Global cases of dementia are expected to treble by 2050, yet scientists are still struggling to understand its basic biology and drug development is littered with failures.
The work by O'Keefe and the Mosers will not lead to immediate breakthroughs but by explaining how cells function -- and then fail to function -- in two very specific regions of the brain it is seen as vital for unpicking how Alzheimer's develops.
Dementia, of which Alzheimer's is the most common form, already affects 44 million people worldwide and that number is set to reach 135 million by 2050, according to Alzheimer's Disease International, a non-profit campaign group.
"Understanding how the healthy brain functions, especially areas of the brain crucial to learning and memory, is incredibly important in understanding what changes occur during conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease," said Doug Brown, director of research and development at Britain's Alzheimer's Society.
The Nobel Prize winners' work on the brain's navigation system stretches back more than 40 years, but more recently scientists have developed powerful new tools for studying brain circuits that O'Keefe plans to put to work at the new London research institute where his is director.
The first of more than 150 scientists will start work at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at University College London next year, using state-of-the-art lasers, molecular biology and computational modeling to explore the brain's intricate wiring.
The Group of Eight leading industrial countries set a goal last December of finding a cure or effective treatment for dementia by 2025.
It is a decade since the last drug was approved to treat Alzheimer's, and there is still no treatment that can slow the progression of the disease, with current drugs only easing some of the symptoms of the disorder.
"We all know there is a time bomb there," O'Keefe said. "We are starting to get a handle on it but that doesn't mean it is going to turn into a cure in the immediate future."

New hope for Alzheimer's patients

The first U.S. experiments with "brain pacemakers" for Alzheimer's are getting under way. Scientists are looking beyond drugs to implants in the hunt for much-needed new treatments.
The research is in its infancy. Only a few dozen people with early-stage Alzheimer's will be implanted in a handful of hospitals (as of Mid January 2013). No one knows if it might work, and if it does, how long the effects might last.More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's or similar dementias, and that number is expected to rise rapidly as the baby boomers age. Today's drugs only temporarily help some symptoms. Attempts to attack Alzheimer's presumed cause, a brain-clogging gunk, so far haven't panned out.The new approach is called deep brain stimulation, or DBS. While it won't attack Alzheimer's root cause either, "maybe we can make the brain work better," said Dr. Douglas Scharre - Ohio State neurologist.Similar experiments are reported at the University of British Columbia and John Hopkins University.The procedure requires implanting electrodes in the brain and send puses from battery-powered generator near the collarbone , sending the tiny shocks up patients neck and into their brain.


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Second Language Could Help Brain Later in Life

Bilingual seniors who have spoken two languages since childhood showed their thinking skills were quicker than individuals who only spoke one language. A lifetime of speaking two different languages might be able to help keep the brain sharper in older people, said researchers of the recently completed study.
Included in the study were seniors who were between the ages of 60 and 68 and were listed as being healthy. Two groups were formed in the study. One was made up of people who had been bilingual since their childhood and one was made up of people who were monolingual their entire lives, or who spoke just one language. While participating in different tasks using their brains, the participants were monitored.
Compared to participants who spoke just one language, the bilingual seniors were faster at switching from one task to another when requested. It also took less energy from the frontal area of the bilingual individual’s brain to make each switch.
These new findings suggest that seniors who are bilingual can use their brains more efficiently compared to seniors who have always been monolingual. The lead author said his study’s results suggest that being bilingual for a lifetime might exert its best benefits during aging on the frontal regions of the person’s brain.
Younger adults who were both monolingual as well as bilingual were tested and results found that bilingual individuals at a younger age did not have any advantage over their monolingual counterparts in switching from mental task to mental task and their brain patterns remained equal to those of people who were monolingual.

(June 2015) One study  showed that the  bilingual patients had been diagnosed about 4 years later and had reported the onset of symptoms about 5 years later than the monolingual patients. The groups were equivalent on measures of cognitive and occupational level, there was no apparent effect of immigration status, and the monolingual patients had received more formal education. There were no gender differences.