January 05, 2018

Emerging data suggest that much of the genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease plays out in microglia, the brain’s resident immune cells. Researchers led by Elizabeth Bradshaw and Philip De Jager at Columbia University Medical School, New York City, generated microglia-like cells from circulating human monocytes, which are plentiful in blood samples. The resulting cells behaved like microglia and expressed key microglial genes, the authors report, suggesting they might serve as a model for these ephemeral brain cells

April 25, 2017

Researchers have discovered two genes, known as UNC5C and ENC1, that are associated with aging individuals having better memory and brain function than would be expected, given the amount of pathologies that accumulated in their brains

March 24, 2017

Investigators have reported the discovery of a new gene that is associated with susceptibility to a common form of brain pathology called Tau that accumulates in several different conditions, including Alzheimer's disease, certain forms of dementia and Parkinsonian syndromes as well as chronic traumatic encephalopathy that occurs with repeated head injuries