View clinical trials related to Alzheimer Disease.
Filter by:Glaucoma is a worldwide leading cause of blindness. The key feature of this ocular neuropathy is characterized by an excavating optic nerve head. Loss of retinal ganglion cells is the final end point in blinding diseases of the optic nerve such as glaucoma. It is known that neuronal cell death in glaucoma occurs by an apoptotic mechanism. In earlier studies the investigators could demonstrate that the process of apoptosis is reflected in circulating leukocytes by different parameters, like differential mRNA expression and an increased fragmentation of the DNA. Such alterations point out a relationship between cellular stress and apoptotic events. Based on the results of mRNA-expression the investigators also expect alterations on the protein level. This study is, therefore, designed to characterize the proteome related to the proteins involved in cell death related pathways. Thus, the expression pattern of several proteins in leukocytes from patients with primary open angle glaucoma will be analyzed by techniques like Western-blot and tandem mass spectrometry. These samples will be compared with samples from healthy controls. In addition, they will also be compared with samples from patients with Alzheimer's disease. Since glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease, these patients will be included as positive controls in this study.
The aim of the protocol is to study the resting brain activation profile of 3 groups of people, using a new fMRI procedure, called fMRI-SAM. fMRI-SAM will be applied to 25 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, 25 patients suffering from amnestic - mild cognitive impairment (MCI) - a clinical picture which may be a prodromal form of AD - and 60 healthy controls. The first analysis of the data will search differences of brain activation profiles between the 3 groups. In the second step, the investigators will study the predictive value of fMRI-SAM to detect MCI patients who will later convert to AD.
The primary aim is to determine whether Divalproex ER or one of the atypical antipsychotics is more effective improving dementia related behavioral symptoms in patients with dementia, and evaluate the impact of such improvements on other clinical domains, such as quality of life, functional status.