From: hounddog23x@gmail.com   
      
   Parents with Alzheimer's: Troubling signs for their grown children   
   Alzheimer's   
      
   02-12-2014   
      
      
      
   The brains of those whose parents have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease   
   show troubling hallmarks of the disease even in middle age, when their   
   cognition is perfectly normal, a new study found. Here, a woman tends to the   
   panel she made to    
   commemorate her mother as part of the Alzheimer's... (Allen J. Schaben)   
   By MELISSA HEALY   
      
      
   Alzheimer's Disease Medical Research Diseases and Illnesses History Science   
   Arts and Culture Rush University Medical Center   
      
      
   The brains of adults who have elderly parents diagnosed with Alzheimer's   
   disease betray troubling hallmarks of the same disease even in middle age,   
   when the memory and mental skills of these grown children are still perfectly   
   normal, a new study finds.   
      
   Research published Wednesday in the journal Neurology finds that   
   Alzheimer's-related abnormalities were most pronounced in the brains of those   
   with two parents suffering from the disease.   
      
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   But among those having just one parent afflicted with Alzheimer's dementia,   
   less severe abnormalities were evident. Those unusual features followed   
   differing patterns depending whether mother, father or both had been   
   diagnosed. But the findings fell in    
   line with previous research suggesting a person's risk of developing   
   Alzheimer's in old age is greater when his or her mother has had the disease   
   than when his or her father has.   
      
   None of the 52 subjects, who underwent magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI,   
   scans and two types of PET scans, showed any behavioral signs of suffering   
   from Alzheimer's. Their ages ranged from 32 to 72, with an average of 56, and   
   all had at least 12 years    
   of education.   
      
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   The researchers recruited 13 subjects who had a mother diagnosed with the   
   disease after the age of 60, 13 who had a father diagnosed with late-onset   
   Alzheimer's, and 13 who were unlucky enough to have two parents diagnosed with   
   the memory-robbing    
   disorder.   
      
   A final 13 subjects with no family history of Alzheimer's served as a   
   comparison group. Scattered evenly through all four groups were 19 subjects   
   who were carriers of the APOE-4 genetic variation that confers a higher risk   
   of Alzheimer's.   
      
   Compared with the no-family-history group, the mother-only group and the   
   father-only group, those with two Alzheimer's-affected parents showed the most   
   reduced overall metabolic activity in their brains and the greatest shrinkage   
   of gray matter in    
   several regions strongly affected in Alzheimer's disease.   
      
   The brains of those with any family history of Alzheimer's also showed more   
   substantial amyloid plaque deposits than did those without a family history of   
   the disease. But subjects with two parents affected showed the most amyloid   
   plaque - a key hallmark    
   of Alzheimer's.   
      
   Even when the researchers created a smaller group of younger subjects - the 36   
   who were under 60 - they observed the same patterns of abnormalities. However,   
   the researchers - from New York University School of Medicine and Weill   
   Cornell Medical College -   
    said they could glean no relationship between APOE-4 status and early signs   
   of brain abnormality in the children of Alzheimer's patients.   
      
   While dispiriting news for those who have watched their parents' minds robbed   
   by Alzheimer's, the new research may aim at something more hopeful. By   
   detecting and characterizing the earliest signs of Alzheimer's risk, studies   
   like these may allow    
   physicians to identify those who could benefit from therapies to prevent or   
   delay progression of the disease long before it begins to affect cognitive   
   function.   
      
   While no therapy for prevention of Alzheimer's is yet in hand, researchers and   
   Alzheimer's activists are putting heavy emphasis on the hunt for an agent or   
   strategy that could nip the disease in the bud, possibly decades before it   
   manifests itself as    
   confusion and memory loss. Chief among them are agents that can disrupt the   
   process of beta-amyloid build-up in the brain, either by improving the brain's   
   trash removal systems or blocking the chemical process that allows them to   
   form.   
      
   In an editorial in JAMA in late December, Dr. Denis A. Evans, a neurologist at   
   Rush University Medical Center, wrote that a shift in emphasis toward   
   Alzheimer's prevention "seems warranted," given the swelling numbers of those   
   at risk and the    
   discouraging record of progress in finding therapies to reverse or cure   
   Alzheimer's.   
      
   If they are to identify such a preventive therapy, however, they will need   
   first to identify and track those most at risk - possibly by looking for the   
   earliest changes in brain structure and function that are forerunners to   
   dementia symptoms.   
      
      
   http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-parents-alzh   
   imers-brain-20140212-story.html   
      
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