Neurodegenerative Disease Patients Research Articles

The Neuropharmacological Evaluation of Seaweed: A Potential Therapeutic Source.

The most common neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs), such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), are the seventh leading cause of mortality and morbidity in developed countries. Clinical observations of NDD patients are characterized by a progressive loss of neurons in the brain along with memory decline. The common pathological hallmarks of NDDs include oxidative stress, the dysregulation of calcium, protein aggregation, a defective protein clearance system, mitochondrial dysfunction, neuroinflammation, neuronal apoptosis, and damage to cholinergic neurons. Therefore, managing this pathology requires screening drugs with different pathological targets, and suitable drugs for slowing the progression or prevention of NDDs remain to be discovered. Among the pharmacological strategies used to manage NDDs, natural drugs represent a promising therapeutic strategy. This review discusses the neuroprotective potential of seaweed and its bioactive compounds, and safety issues, which may provide several beneficial insights that warrant further investigation.

Metabolomics as a Crucial Tool to Develop New Therapeutic Strategies for Neurodegenerative Diseases

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), such as Alzheimer’s (AD), Parkinson’s (PD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), share common pathological mechanisms, including metabolism alterations. However, their specific neuronal cell types affected and molecular biomarkers suggest that there are both common and specific alterations regarding metabolite levels. In this review, we were interested in identifying metabolite alterations that have been reported in preclinical models of NDs and that have also been documented as altered in NDs patients. Such alterations could represent interesting targets for the development of targeted therapy. Importantly, the translation of such findings from preclinical to clinical studies is primordial for the study of possible therapeutic agents. We found that N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA), myo-inositol, and glutamate are commonly altered in the three NDs investigated here. We also found other metabolites commonly altered in both AD and PD. In this review, we discuss the studies reporting such alterations and the possible pathological mechanism underlying them. Finally, we discuss clinical trials that have attempted to develop treatments targeting such alterations. We conclude that the treatment combination of both common and differential alterations would increase the chances of patients having access to efficient treatments for each ND.

In vitro and in silico approaches to engineering three-dimensional biological tissues and organoids

<i>In vitro</i> and <i>in silico</i> approaches to engineering three-dimensional biological tissues and organoids

Mechanistic considerations and biomarkers level in nickel-induced neurodegenerative diseases: An updated systematic review.

The environment has been implicated to be a strong determinant of brain health with higher risk of neurodegeneration. The drastic rise in the prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), multiple sclerosis (MS) etc., supports the idea that environmental factors may play a major role in NDDs aetiology. Nickel is one of the listed environmental metals reported to pose a serious threat to human health. This paper reported available studies on nickel level in NDDs covering both animal and human studies. Different databases were searched for articles reporting the main neurotoxicity mechanisms and the concentration of nickel in fluids and tissues of NDDs patients compared to controls. Data were extracted and synthesized by ensuring the articles were related to nickel and NDDs. Various mechanisms were reported as oxidative stress, disturbances in mitochondrial membrane potential, trace elements homeostasis destabilization, etc. Nickel was found elevated in biological fluids as blood, serum/plasma and CSF and in the brain of NDDs, as a consequence of unintentional exposure thorough nickel-contaminated air, food, water, and skin contact. In addition, after exposure to nickel, the concentration of markers of lipid peroxidation were increased, while some antioxidant defence systems decreased. Thus, the reduction in the exposure to nickel contaminant may hold a promise in reducing the incidence of NDDs.

Development of Neuro-Degenerative Diseases’ Gait Classification Algorithm Using Convolutional Neural Network and Wavelet Coherence Spectrogram of Gait Synchronization

Objective: A neurodegenerative disease (NDD) detection algorithm using a convolutional neural network (CNN) and wavelet coherence spectrogram of gait synchronization was developed to classify NDD based on gait force signals. The main purpose of this research was to help physicians with screening for NDD for early diagnosis, efficient treatment planning, and monitoring of disease progression. Methods: The NDD detection algorithm was evaluated using the existing online database from Physionet by Hausdorff <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">et al.</i> , called gait in neurodegenerative disease database, comprised of windowing, feature transformation, and classification processes. Force pattern variations among healthy control (HC) and patients with ALS, HD, and PD were distinctly observed from feature-extracted wavelet coherence spectrogram images. Results: HC was balanced because their left and right feet supported each other when walking. In patients with ALS, the left-right foot correlation was weaker than that in HC. In patients with HD, walking velocity varied, which indicated that only one foot (right or left) was dominant and sustained the entire body’s balance during movement. The left and right feet of patients with PD were correlated and coordinated in terms of supporting lower-body movements. The right foot was always on the ground to support the entire body when walking. Conclusion: The proposed NDD detection algorithm effectively differentiates gait patterns on the basis of a time-frequency spectrogram of gait force signals between HC and NDD patients with an overall sensitivity of 94.34%, specificity of 96.98%, accuracy of 96.37%, and AUC value of 0.97 using 5-fold cross-validation.

Memorable Food: Fighting Age-Related Neurodegeneration by Precision Nutrition.

Healthcare systems worldwide are seriously challenged by a rising prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs), which mostly, but not exclusively, affect the ever-growing population of the elderly. The most known neurodegenerative diseases are Alzheimer's (AD) and Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, but some viral infections of the brain and traumatic brain injury may also cause NDD. Typical for NDD are the malfunctioning of neurons and their irreversible loss, which often progress irreversibly to dementia and ultimately to death. Numerous factors are involved in the pathogenesis of NDD: genetic variability, epigenetic changes, extent of oxidative/nitrosative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and DNA damage. The complex interplay of all the above-mentioned factors may be a fingerprint of neurodegeneration, with different diseases being affected to different extents by particular factors. There is a voluminous body of evidence showing the benefits of regular exercise to brain health and cognitive functions. Moreover, the importance of a healthy diet, balanced in macro- and micro-nutrients, in preventing neurodegeneration and slowing down a progression to full-blown disease is evident. Individuals affected by NDD almost inevitably have low-grade inflammation and anomalies in lipid metabolism. Metabolic and lipid profiles in NDD can be improved by the Mediterranean diet. Many studies have associated the Mediterranean diet with a decreased risk of dementia and AD, but a cause-and-effect relationship has not been deduced. Studies with caloric restriction showed neuroprotective effects in animal models, but the results in humans are inconsistent. The pathologies of NDD are complex and there is a great inter-individual (epi)genetic variance within any population. Furthermore, the gut microbiome, being deeply involved in nutrient uptake and lipid metabolism, also represents a pillar of the gut microbiome–brain axis and is linked with the pathogenesis of NDD. Numerous studies on the role of different micronutrients (omega-3 fatty acids, bioactive polyphenols from fruit and medicinal plants) in the prevention, prediction, and treatment of NDD have been conducted, but we are still far away from a personalized diet plan for individual NDD patients. For this to be realized, large-scale cohorts that would include the precise monitoring of food intake, mapping of genetic variants, epigenetic data, microbiome studies, and metabolome, lipidome, and transcriptome data are needed.

Mitophagy impairment in neurodegenerative diseases: Pathogenesis and therapeutic interventions

Neurons are specialized cells, requiring a lot of energy for its proper functioning. Mitochondria are the key cellular organelles and produce most of the energy in the form of ATP, required for all the crucial functions of neurons. Hence, the regulation of mitochondrial biogenesis and quality control is important for maintaining neuronal health. As a part of mitochondrial quality control, the aged and damaged mitochondria are removed through a selective mode of autophagy called mitophagy. However, in different pathological conditions, this process is impaired in neuronal cells and lead to a variety of neurodegenerative disease (NDD). Various studies indicate that specific protein aggregates, the characteristics of different NDDs, affect this process of mitophagy, adding to the severity and progression of diseases. Though, the detailed process of this association is yet to be explored. In light of the significant role of impaired mitophagy in NDDs, further studies have also investigated a large number of therapeutic strategies to target mitophagy in these diseases. Our current review summarizes the abnormalities in different mitophagy pathways and their association with different NDDs. We have also elaborated upon various novel therapeutic strategies and their limitations to enhance mitophagy in NDDs that may help in the management of symptoms and increasing the life expectancy of NDD patients. Thus, our study provides an overview of mitophagy in NDDs and emphasizes the need to elucidate the mechanism of impaired mitophagy prevalent across different NDDs in future research. This will help designing better treatment options with high efficacy and specificity.

The outcome and burden of Chinese patients with neurodegenerative diseases: A 10-year clinical feature study.

As the Chinese population continues to age, the incidence of neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) has increased dramatically, which results in heavy medical and economic burden for families and society. The objective of this study was to evaluate NDDs in a southern Chinese hospital over a 10-year period and examine trends in demographics, outcome, length of stay (LOS) and cost. Retrospective medical records of patients from January 2010 to December 2019 were collected, including 7231 patients with NDDs (as case group) and 9663 patients without any NDDs (as control group). The information of social demographic data, admission source, reasons for admission, outcomes, LOS, and cost were extracted and analysed. The average hospitalisation age of the patients with NDDs is over 65years (peak age 70-89years). Compared with the control group, the case group had a longer LOS and a higher cost and the numbers of patients with NDDs increased yearly from 2010 to 2019. The LOS shortened while the cost increased. Clinical features affected LOS and cost. Patients suffering from infection, abnormal blood pressure and the imbalance of water-electrolyte homoeostasis as main reasons for admission were decreased; however, heart disease, cerebrovascular accident and mental diseases were significantly increased, the overall change trend of fracture/trauma remained stable. The rate of discharge to home care and mortality declined; discharge to other medical or community facilities increased over 10years. The majority of NDDs patients tended to be older. During the last 10years from 2010 to 2019, the numbers of NDDs patients increased yearly, the trend of LOS became shortening and the cost gradually increasing. The main reasons of admission and outcomes of hospital showed different trends.

Classification of gait rhythm signals between patients with neuro-degenerative diseases and normal subjects: Experiments with statistical features and different classification models

For the purpose of realizing an intelligent and highly accurate diagnosis system for neuro-degenerative diseases (NDD), such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease (PD) and Huntington's disease (HD), the present study investigated the classification capability of different gait statistical features extracted from gait rhythm signals. Nine statistical measures, including several seldom-used variability measures for these signals, were calculated for each time series. Next, after an evaluation of four popular machine learning methods, the optimal feature subset was generated with a hill-climbing feature selection method. Experiments were performed on a data set with 16 healthy control (CO) subjects, 13 ALS, 15 PD and 20 HD patients. When evaluated with the leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) method, the highest accuracy rate for discriminating between groups of NDD patients and healthy control subjects was 96.83%. The best classification accuracy (100%) was obtained with two subtype binary classifiers (PD vs. CO and HD vs. CO).

Assessment of Platelet Indices in Patients with Neurodegenerative Diseases: Mean Platelet Volume Was Increased in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

Platelets induce chronic inflammation which is a key step in atherosclerosis and may be involved in the progression of neurodegenerative diseases (NDD). We aimed to measure the mean platelet volume (MPV) and platelet count (PLC) in NDD patients. The present study was designed to investigate the platelet function by measuring MPV and PLC in NDD. A total of 182 outpatients with Alzheimer's (AD) or Parkinson's diseases (PD) were included. The control group consisted of 104 healthy subjects. Platelet count was similar between groups. MPV values of PD patients were higher than those of AD patients and controls (P < 0.001). MPV correlated negatively with Heohn and Yahr scale (HYS) score (P < 0.001). Increased MPV in patients with PD may point to a platelet dysfunction. High-grade inflammation presents with low levels of MPV as seen in PD patients with high HYS scores.