Tau Imaging Among Breakthroughs Advancing the Fight against Alzheimer ' s

Worldwide,  nearly44 million  people now have Alzheimer ' s disease (AD) or related dementia, making these conditions the  top cause of disabilities in later life. The biopharma industry has invested billions of dollars into research to treat and prevent AD1, yet this work has faced many obstacles, including difficulty identifying biomarkers, tracking the disease ’s progress in the brain, and recruiting patients to trials while they are still asymptomatic. But in recent years, we’ve begun to see breakthroughs that is driving our research in new directions. Many of these accomplishments were highlighted at the Alzheimer ' s Association International Conference in July, where excitement was palpable.One of the most talked about topics in sessions and networking events was advances in understanding tau pathology and the ability to conduct tau imaging in live patients. This has opened up our ability to see how the tau pathology progresses  and to understand the interactions between tau and amyloid pathologies in living patients. Several sessions explored this topic, including a review of a Mayo Clinic study on predictors of regional tau-PET uptake, and another on the association between amyloid and tau accumulations in patients’ b rains and its influence on clinical features.Studies of healthy volunteers at risk of developing AD have shown the presence of amyloid beta sometimes decades before they become symptomatic, which means we have the potential to identify risk...
Source: EyeForPharma - Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Source Type: news