ARCHIVED - Research About – Alzheimer's Disease

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The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada's agency for health research. CIHR's mission is to create new scientific knowledge and to catalyze its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health-care system. Composed of 13 Institutes, CIHR provides leadership and support to nearly 12,000 health researchers and trainees across Canada. Through CIHR, the Government of Canada invested approximately $20.9 million in 2007-08 in research on Alzheimer's disease.

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The Facts

• Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most widespread of a large group of disorders known as dementias, diseases characterized by a progressive deterioration of thinking ability and memory.
• AD accounts for nearly two-thirds, or 64%, of all dementias.
• One in 13 Canadians over age 65 – and one in three over age 85 – have AD.
• Twice as many women as men have dementia.
• By 2031, more than 750,000 Canadians are expected to have AD and related dementias.
• Caring for people with AD costs about $5.5 billion each year in Canada.

(Sources: Canadian Institute of Health Information, Alzheimer's Society of Canada)

International Partnership 

To Accelerate Research on Alzheimer's Disease

Canada, France: CIHR has signed a co-operation agreement on Alzheimer's disease research with the health research funding organizations of Quebec (the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec - FRSQ) and France (the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale - Inserm). The agreement focusses on research projects linked to the diagnosis, treatment or management of patients with Alzheimer's and related diseases.

Finding Solutions

New Target in Fight Against Alzheimer's

New work by a team of researchers from Canada and the U.S. has found a possible new target in the hunt for treatments to protect against the ravages of Alzheimer's disease. The team, which included CIHR-supported researcher Dr. Minh Dang Nguyen at the University of Calgary, determined that a gene called SIRT1 protects against neurodegeneration. In experiments with mice, researchers found that increasing the number of copies of the gene significantly decreased the number of neurons that died. The finding points to another possible therapy against Alzheimer's.

Teaching Old Timekeepers new Tricks

When testing for early signs of dementia, doctors often ask patients to draw a clock; the less accurate the drawing, the greater the likelihood of illness. Researchers from the Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, McGill University, led by CIHR-supported researcher Dr. Howard Chertkow, devised a new, expanded scoring system for this established diagnostic tool. The team found that three measures, two of them new, better predicted those patients with mild cognitive impairment who progressed to dementia. Errors in any of the following provided the best prediction: the number of clock hands, the size of the hands, or the number that the hour hand is pointed towards.

Getting a better grip on plaques

Using a unique form of infrared imaging made possible by the Canadian Light Source synchrotron facility in Saskatoon, a research team from the University of Manitoba led by Dr. Kathleen Gough observed new information about toxic plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease. Two types of plaques are known, diffuse plaques and so-called dense-core plaques that are found in more advanced states of the disease. In imaging studies with animals, the team was able to see a significant increase in a type of fat molecules called phospholipids in the area around the dense-core plaques, but not in the diffuse plaques. The research provides new insight into these plaques, which may be significant to ongoing efforts to find effective treatments for Alzheimer's disease.

The Researchers

Dr. Jane Rylett – Clear thinking about Alzheimer's

Dr. Jane Rylett has as good a sense as anyone about what's going on in her father's head. He has Alzheimer's. She's one of Canada's leading Alzheimer's researchers.

For the past 25 years, the University of Western Ontario scientist has helped map the specific chemical pathways that disrupt the neurons, or brain cells, involved in this cognitive disorder.

"No one's figured out what initiates Alzheimer's," says Dr. Rylett. "But in the past two decades we've come a long way in understanding the underlying biology of the disease."

Now her CIHR-supported research is further closing in on the neurochemical processes involved in Alzheimer's, potentially providing new targets for treatment.

Alzheimer's disease involves the disruption of communication among the cholinergic neurons, brain cells located in a region of the brain directly between the ears. When you think, these neurons are active. They communicate using acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter. Disrupt the production, or function, of acetylcholine and these brain cells can't talk to one another – resulting in Alzheimer's. One in 13 Canadians over age 65 has Alzheimer's or a related disease.

Dr. Rylett's research is focussed on understanding acetylcholine's production and function. Through her lab group's CIHR-supported research they recently made a startling discovery: they found a form of the enzyme that makes acetylcholine in the nucleus of cholinergic neurons.

"It's extremely unusual that you'd find the enzyme that makes a neurotransmitter in the neuron's nucleus. It's like finding a car parked in your living room. The first question you ask is: What's it doing there?" says Dr. Rylett.

The research involved painstakingly analyzing post-mortem human brain tissue from people who'd died at ages three months to 92-years-old. When the research group extended the study to mice, they found that as mice age there's a decrease of the acetylcholine-making enzyme in the nucleus of the brain cells, a result paralleled in the human brain tissue.

"This is exciting because there seems to be a relationship between having this enzyme in the nucleus and forestalling the progression of Alzheimer's disease," says Dr. Rylett, a member of the Alzheimer Society of Ontario board.

It's encouraging research results like these that she regularly shares with the others whose family members have Alzheimer's. And they're eager to listen - on a snowy, winter night this year more than 200-people packed a university lecture hall to hear Dr. Rylett talk about her research.

For more information, go to http://www.impact.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/.