Drug Restores Brain Function and Memory in Early Alzheimer’s Disease

In a recent study conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University, a novel therapeutic approach for an existing drug reverses a condition in elderly patients who are at high risk for dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. The drug, commonly used to treat epilepsy, calms hyperactivity in the brain of patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), a clinically recognized condition in which memory impairment is greater than expected for a person’s age — and which greatly increases risk for Alzheimer’s dementia, according to the study published in the journal NeuroImage: Clinical. The findings validate the Johns Hopkins team’s initial conclusions, published three years ago in the journal Neuron. They also closely match the results in animal studies performed by the team and scientists elsewhere. In the future, neuroscientists hope the therapy will be tested in a large-scale, longer-term clinical trial. To read more about this study, click here.