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Feb 13, 2015

New Alzheimer's Therapy Shows Promise

By Alzheimer's Reading Room Scientists at the Karolinska Institutet have evaluated a new Alzheimer’s therapy in which the patients receive an implant that stimulates the growth of a certain type of nerve cell.

The results, which are published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia, suggest that the introduction of a nerve growth factor can prevent neuronal degradation in Alzheimer’s patients.

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Promising results for new Alzheimer therapy

Patients with Alzheimer’s disease suffer a selective and early breakdown of so-called cholinergic nerve cells, which require a specific nerve growth factor (NGF) – essentially a group of proteins necessary for cell growth and survival – to function.

Nerve growth factor (NGF) is a small secreted protein that is important for the growth, maintenance, and survival of certain target neurons (nerve cells). It also functions as a signaling molecule.

In an attempt to curb the breakdown of the cholinergic nerve cells, researchers at Karolinska Institutet’s Centre for Alzheimer’s Research and their colleagues at Karolinska University Hospital ’s neurosurgery clinic and the Danish biotech company NsGene introduced NGF directly into the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

To do this, they used NGF-producing cell capsules, placing them in the basal fore-brain where the cholinergic cells reside using precision stereotactic surgery. There the capsules, which can easily be removed, release NGF to the surrounding cells in order to prevent their degradation.

“Our results show that when the patients received NGF, there was a significant increase in ChAT in the CSF,” says Dr Taher Darreh-Shori, one of the researchers involved in the study. “The patients that exhibited this increase were also those that responded best to the treatment. Our PET scans also showed an increase in cholinergic cell activity and metabolism in the brain.”

“The results are promising, but must be treated with circumspection as only a few patients participated in the study,” says principal investigator Professor Maria Eriksdotter. “So our findings will have to be substantiated in a larger controlled study using more patients.”

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You are reading original content the Alzheimer's Reading Room

Publication: ' Changes in CSF cholinergic biomarkers in response to cell therapy with NGF in patients with Alzheimer’s disease ', Karami, A., H. EyjÃ³lfsdÃ³ttir, S. Vijayaraghavan, G. Lind, P. Almqvist, A. Kadir, B. Linderoth, N. Andreasen, K. Blennow, A. Wall, E. Westman, D. Ferreira, M. Kristoffersen-Wiberg, L. O. Wahlund, Seiger, Ã. , A. Nordberg, L. Wahlberg, T. Darreh-Shori, M. Eriksdotter, Alzheimer’s & Dementia , uncorrected proof online 9 February 2015, doi 10.1016/j.jalz.2014.11.008.

Karolinska Institutet is one of the world's leading medical universities. Its vision is to significantly contribute to the improvement of human health. Karolinska Institutet accounts for over 40 per cent of the medical academic research conducted in Sweden.
By Bob DeMarco at 2/13/2015 10:31:00 AM Labels: Alzheimer's Dementia , Alzheimer's disease , Alzheimer's therapy , Alzheimer's Treatment , life news , medical science , nerve growth factor