Steven Arnold, MD, professor of Neurology and Psychiatry and director of the Penn Memory Center, tells the Philadelphia Inquirer that diabetics are 50 to 100 percent more likely to get the fatal, memory-destroying Alzheimer’s disease. Arnold is the senior author of a new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation that looked at the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment, often a precursor to dementia. He found insulin resistance in their brains, even though the people did not have diabetes. Arnold said the chemical differences between those who did and did not have memory problems were striking. "I've never seen a difference this large," he said. Arnold said it's likely that people with diabetes have brain insulin resistance, but others could have it, too. Arnold is now seeking funding to test whether a diabetes drug that lowers blood sugar and increases sensitivity to insulin, metformin, can help people with dementia or mild cognitive impairment.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Insulin resistance in the brain precedes and contributes to cognitive decline above and beyond other known causes of Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The team identified extensive abnormalities in the activity of two major signaling pathways for insulin and insulin-like growth factor in non-diabetic people with Alzheimer's disease. This is the first study to directly demonstrate that insulin resistance occurs in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. The study is now online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. "If we can prevent brain insulin resistance from occurring, or re-sensitize brain cells to insulin with any of the currently available insulin-sensitizing diabetes medicines, we may be able to slow down, prevent, or perhaps even improve cognitive decline,”  said senior author, Steven E. Arnold, MD, professor of Psychiatry and Neurology. Arnold is also the director of the Penn Memory Center, a National Institute on Aging-designated Alzheimer's Disease Core Center.

Penn Medicine News Release

Scientists have for the first time improved memory by applying direct electrical stimulation to a key area in the brain as it learns its way around a new environment, the New York Times reports. Experts said that the new study, appearing Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, was tantalizing but not yet conclusive, because the number of patients tested — six — was small, and the biological effects of electrical stimulation are still poorly understood. “People should run to replicate this study, because the implications are incredibly exciting, both for understanding the mechanism for encoding new memories, and ultimately for the treatment of neurological diseases” like dementias, said Michael J. Kahana, PhD, a Penn neuroscientist, who was not involved in the research.

USA Today - The government announced plans Tuesday to find new ways to combat Alzheimer's disease, increasing research funding more than 25% over the next two years and beefing up caregiver support and public awareness campaigns. The action, a total of $156 million, sets into motion the National Alzheimer's Project Act (NAPA), signed into law by President Obama last year. Alzheimer's, which is a form of dementia that causes progressive loss of intellectual and social skills, is the only disease among the top killers for which there is no prevention, cure or treatment that will slow its progression. The plan calls for $130 million for research and $26 million for caregiver support and education.

Jason Karlawish, MD, professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics, with the Penn Memory Center, speaks with NPR's Talk of the Nation about patient requests for skin cancer drugs to be prescribed off label for Alzheimer's disease. A medical study in Science finds that an FDA-approved skin cancer drug, marketed as Targretin, can reduce Alzheimer's-like symptoms in mice, but it is unclear if the drug will have the same effect on humans. Some researchers want to begin testing the drug for its efficacy in treating patients with AD. "I don't even know what dose you would take to see if it gets into the brain, where you could then begin to measure if it positively affects the brain or not," Karlawish said. "The first studies that need to be done in humans are studies that would involve a few volunteers to learn how the drug penetrates the brain and affects amyloid levels, and then more studies to learn if it is a safe and effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease."

In an uplifting story in the New York Times, Robert Leleux recounts his grandmother's diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease and the lessons she taught by forgetting. "So often, I hear people say they’d rather die than get Alzheimer’s. This is, in part, because they believe the disease will force them to abandon themselves to oblivion. But my grandmother showed me that we are more than the sum of our memories. She taught me the vital importance of forgetting; and that sometimes it’s only our commitment to remembering that prevents us from accepting the love and peace that surrounds us," writes Leleux.