Smartphone-assisted “scavenger hunt” identifies people at risk for dementia

Perspectives for early detection

11-Oct-2024 - Researchers from DZNE and Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg have identified individuals with increased risk for dementia using mobility data, recorded during a smartphone-based wayfinding task on the university campus. The findings, reported in the journal “PLOS Digital Health”, show the ...

PFAS in blood are ubiquitous – and they are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases

Younger people are particularly affected

13-Mar-2024 - Researchers at DZNE provide evidence that traces of the widely used PFAS chemicals in human blood are associated with unfavorable lipid profiles and thus with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. The findings are based on data from more than 2,500 adults from Bonn and the Dutch ...

New Potential Mechanism for Vision Loss Discovered

Visual cells may not simply die in some diseases, but are mechanically transported out of the retina beforehand

05-Dec-2022 - Thanks to laboratory produced human mini-retinas, researchers were able to observe complex changes in the retina as they occur in macular degeneration. This enabled them to discover the so-called cell extrusion as a potential mechanism for neurodegenerative diseases. Visual cells in the human ...

More Brain Lesions in Senior Women than in Men of the Same Age

The Extent of Abnormalities in the Brain’s White Matter Grows Significantly After Menopause

04-Jul-2022 - In women after menopause, the extent of certain brain lesions is larger than in men of the same age. DZNE researchers come to this conclusion based on the assessment of more than 3,400 adults as part of the Bonn Rhineland Study. A team led by neuroscientist Monique Breteler reports on the ...

The Retina as a Potential Biomarker for Reduced Brain Matter

“There is evidence that the retina can serve as a window into the brain”

17-Mar-2022 - Researchers from the Department of Ophthalmology at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE) have found a close connection between the dimensions of retinal structures and those of the brain. They report on this in the journal “Scientific ...

Highly Responsive Immune Cells Seem to be Beneficial for the Brain

New Insights into the Mechanisms of Neurodegenerative Diseases.

16-Feb-2022 - Findings by researchers from Germany support the view that hyperactive immune cells in the brain can have a protective effect in the course of neurodegenerative diseases. Experts from Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) and LMU ...

Viral infections could drive neurodegeneration

25-Oct-2021 - Some viral diseases could possibly contribute to neurodegeneration. This is reported by researchers of the DZNE in the journal "Nature Communications". Their assessment is based on laboratory experiments in which they were able to show that certain viral molecules promote the intercellular ...

In neurodegenerative diseases, brain immune cells have a “ravenous appetite” for sugar

The interpretation of certain brain scans needs rethinking

15-Oct-2021 - At the beginning of neurodegenerative disease, the immune cells of the brain – the “microglia” – take up glucose, a sugar molecule, to a much greater extent than hitherto assumed. Studies by the DZNE, the LMU München and the LMU Klinikum München, published in the journal Science Translational ...

Investigational gene regulation therapy lowers levels of Tau protein in the brain and could protect against Alzheimer's

Zinc finger technology as a starting point for future therapies

25-Mar-2021 - Researchers at the DZNE (Germany), at Massachusetts General Hospital (USA) and at the genomic medicine company Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. tested a novel gene regulation approach to treat brain diseases such as Alzheimer's in laboratory studies. It leverages zinc finger proteins, which ...

Risk gene for Alzheimer’s has early effects on the brain

Results of a study in 82 young adults

21-Sep-2020 - A genetic predisposition to late-onset Alzheimer’s disease affects how the brains of young adults cope with certain memory tasks. Researchers from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum report on this in the scientific journal “Current Biology”. ...