View clinical trials related to Alzheimer Disease, Early Onset.
Filter by:Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the leading neurodegenerative disease of aging characterized by multiple cognitive impairments. Given the recent failures of disease-modifying drugs, the current focus is on preventing or mitigating synaptic damage that correlates with cognitive decline in AD patients. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a safe, non-invasive, non-painful electrical stimulation of the brain that is shown to act as a primer at the synaptic level when administered along with behavioral therapy, mostly involving language, learning and memory. Previous studies have shown that tDCS over the left angular gyrus (AG) improves language associative learning in the elderly through changes in functional connectivity between the AG and the hippocampus. The investigators' previous clinical trial on the effects of tDCS in neurodegenerative disorders has also shown augmented effects of lexical retrieval for tDCS. In the present study the investigators will compare the effects of active vs. sham tDCS over the AG-an area that is part of the default mode network but also a language area, particularly important for semantic integration and event processing-in two predominant AD variants: probable AD with amnesic phenotype (amnesic/typical AD) and probable AD with non-amnesic (language deficit) phenotype also described as logopenic variant PPA with AD pathology (aphasic/atypical AD). The investigators aim to: (1) determine whether active high-definition tDCS (HD-tDCS) targeting the left AG combined with a Word-List Learning Intervention (WordLLI) will improve verbal learning; (2) identify the changes in functional connectivity between the stimulated area (AG) and other structurally and functionally connected areas using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging; (3) identify changes in the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA at the stimulation site using magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Furthermore, the investigators need to determine the characteristics of the people that may benefit from the new neuromodulatory approaches. For this reason, the investigators will evaluate neural and cognitive functions as well as physiological characteristics such as sleep, and will analyze the moderating effects on verbal learning outcomes. Study results can help provide treatment alternatives as well as a better understanding of the therapeutic and neuromodulatory effects of tDCS in AD, thus improving patients' and caregivers' quality of life.
This study seeks to correlate microbiome sequencing data with information provided by patients and their medical records regarding Alzheimer's disease.
Recent clinical data showed that patients with Alzheimer Disease (AD) might present epilepsy at early stages of the disease (Cretin et al., 2016, Vossel et al., 2016). In mice models of Alzheimer disease, preclinical researchers observed an increase of epileptic events during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, which is very unusual. This study aims at testing if patients with AD present an exacerbation of epileptic events during REM sleep, which could constitute an early biomarker of the disease. Investigators will evaluate the incidence of epilepsy during each sleep stage in 40 patients with early or moderate forms of AD and in 40 healthy subjects. Investigators will also look for a link between epilepsy during sleep in AD participants and memory performances, brain damage (by using MRI scans) and in the case of patients, the phenotype of the Apolipoprotein E(ApoE) gene.
This study attempts to identify two types of AD by using clinical and cognitive tasks and brain imaging. The subtypes of AD are separated into a "typical" group (memory loss) and a "variant" group (language, visuospatial, and other cognitive difficulties). Performance on the clinical tasks and brain imaging will be compared among the young-onset Alzheimer's disease group, a late-onset Alzheimer's disease group, and a control group.
This is a neuroimaging study designed to learn more about amyloid and tau burden in the brain of patients with typical and atypical Alzheimer's Disease and how burden may change over a one year period.