scholarly journals Who speaks up for Inés Fonseca? Representing violence against vulnerable subjects and the ethics of care in fictional narrative about Alzheimer's disease:Ahora tocad música de baile(2004) by Andrés Barba

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (7) ◽  
pp. 1394-1415 ◽  
Author(s):  
RAQUEL MEDINA
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Ethics Of Care ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fictional Narrative ◽  
Social Discourses ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
Vulnerable Subjects ◽  
The One

ABSTRACTThis paper studies the 2004 Spanish fictional novel by Andrés Barba,Ahora tocad música de baile, one of the first cultural texts dealing entirely with Alzheimer's disease to appear in Spain. It argues that the significance of Barba's fictional novel rests on two important issues: the ethics of representation of violence against vulnerable subjects and the ethics of care. The paper analyses how these two issues allow Barba to create a story in which the verbal and physical abuse to which the person living with Alzheimer's disease is subjected places the reader, on the one hand, as voyeur/witness of the abuse; and, on the other, as interpreter, and ultimately judge, of the fine line that separates euthanasia, assisted suicide and murder. The open ending of the novel defers all ethical and moral judgement to the reader. It examines how the novel offers a monolithic perspective about Alzheimer's disease, in which care is presented as a burden. In fact, this study shows that the novel's multi-layered structure and polyphonic nature places the emphasis on stigmas, stereotypes and negative metaphors around Alzheimer's disease, as found in contemporary social discourses.

Allocentric to Egocentric Spatial Switching: Impairment in aMCI and Alzheimer's Disease Patients?

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gennaro Ruggiero ◽  
Alessandro Iavarone ◽  
Tina Iachini
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Reference Frame ◽  
Reference Frames ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Spatial Representations ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Spatial Memory Task ◽  
Switching Condition ◽  
Normal Controls

Objective: Deficits in egocentric (subject-to-object) and allocentric (object-to-object) spatial representations, with a mainly allocentric impairment, characterize the first stages of the Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods: To identify early cognitive signs of AD conversion, some studies focused on amnestic-Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) by reporting alterations in both reference frames, especially the allocentric ones. However, spatial environments in which we move need the cooperation of both reference frames. Such cooperating processes imply that we constantly switch from allocentric to egocentric frames and vice versa. This raises the question of whether alterations of switching abilities might also characterize an early cognitive marker of AD, potentially suitable to detect the conversion from aMCI to dementia. Here, we compared AD and aMCI patients with Normal Controls (NC) on the Ego-Allo- Switching spatial memory task. The task assessed the capacity to use switching (Ego-Allo, Allo-Ego) and non-switching (Ego-Ego, Allo-Allo) verbal judgments about relative distances between memorized stimuli. Results: The novel finding of this study is the neat impairment shown by aMCI and AD in switching from allocentric to egocentric reference frames. Interestingly, in aMCI when the first reference frame was egocentric, the allocentric deficit appeared attenuated. Conclusion: This led us to conclude that allocentric deficits are not always clinically detectable in aMCI since the impairments could be masked when the first reference frame was body-centred. Alongside, AD and aMCI also revealed allocentric deficits in the non-switching condition. These findings suggest that switching alterations would emerge from impairments in hippocampal and posteromedial areas and from concurrent dysregulations in the locus coeruleus-noradrenaline system or pre-frontal cortex.

scholarly journals Deep-MEG: spatiotemporal CNN features and multiband ensemble classification for predicting the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease with magnetoencephalography

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Giovannetti ◽  
Gianluca Susi ◽  
Paola Casti ◽  
Arianna Mencattini ◽  
Sandra Pusil ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Ensemble Classification ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Ensemble Classifiers ◽  
Deep Convolutional Neural Networks ◽  
Early Signs ◽  
Data Representations ◽  
The Brain

AbstractIn this paper, we present the novel Deep-MEG approach in which image-based representations of magnetoencephalography (MEG) data are combined with ensemble classifiers based on deep convolutional neural networks. For the scope of predicting the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), functional connectivity (FC) measures between the brain bio-magnetic signals originated from spatially separated brain regions are used as MEG data representations for the analysis. After stacking the FC indicators relative to different frequency bands into multiple images, a deep transfer learning model is used to extract different sets of deep features and to derive improved classification ensembles. The proposed Deep-MEG architectures were tested on a set of resting-state MEG recordings and their corresponding magnetic resonance imaging scans, from a longitudinal study involving 87 subjects. Accuracy values of 89% and 87% were obtained, respectively, for the early prediction of AD conversion in a sample of 54 mild cognitive impairment subjects and in a sample of 87 subjects, including 33 healthy controls. These results indicate that the proposed Deep-MEG approach is a powerful tool for detecting early alterations in the spectral–temporal connectivity profiles and in their spatial relationships.

scholarly journals Evaluation of the novel 18 F‐labeled PET tracer SMBT‐1 for imaging astrogliosis in healthy elderly controls and A+/T+/(N+) Alzheimer's disease patients

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (S4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor LL Villemagne ◽  
Ryuichi Harada ◽  
Vincent Dore ◽  
Shozo Furumoto ◽  
Rachel S Mulligan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Healthy Elderly ◽  
Pet Tracer

The management of dementia

2012 ◽  
pp. 411-419
Author(s):  
John-Paul Taylor ◽  
Simon Fleminger
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
Clinical Syndrome ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Cerebral Damage ◽  
Memory Problems ◽  
The One

The term dementia is used in two different ways. First there are the dementias. These are diseases that cause progressive and diffuse cerebral damage, of which Alzheimer's disease is the most common. Second, dementia can be used to refer to a clinical syndrome. Thus dementia is ‘an acquired global impairment of intellect, memory, and personality, but without impairment of consciousness’. For clinicians this is the preferred usage, and the one adopted in this chapter. It demands that the cause of the dementia is explored, and makes no comment on the likely prognosis. This chapter will focus on the management of dementia regardless of the cause; however given the burden of dementia in older age, the discussion will be invariably, but not exclusively, slanted towards the management of dementia in this age group. Aspects of management specific to individual diseases which produce dementia will be avoided. In addition, a discourse on the management of cognitive and memory problems is excluded as these are described elsewhere (see Chapters 2.5.4 and 6.2.7). Patients who suffer the dementia before 18 years of age will, by and large, not be included; their needs are often best met by services provided for people with intellectual disability.

scholarly journals Full-length and C-terminal neurogranin in Alzheimer’s disease cerebrospinal fluid analyzed by novel ultrasensitive immunoassays

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Annika Öhrfelt ◽  
Julien Dumurgier ◽  
Henrik Zetterberg ◽  
Agathe Vrillon ◽  
Nicholas J. Ashton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Single Molecule ◽  
Full Length ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Drug Candidates ◽  
Postsynaptic Protein ◽  
Coefficients Of Variation ◽  
Assay Precision ◽  
Novel Drug

Abstract Background Neurogranin (Ng) is a neuron-specific and postsynaptic protein that is abundantly expressed in the brain, particularly in the dendritic spine of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex. The enzymatic cleavage of Ng produces fragments that are released into cerebrospinal (CSF), which have been shown to be elevated in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients and predict cognitive decline. Thus, quantification of distinctive cleavage products of Ng could elucidate different features of the disease. Methods In this study, we developed novel ultrasensitive single molecule array (Simoa) assays for measurement of full-length neurogranin (FL-Ng) and C-terminal neurogranin (CT-Ng) fragments in CSF. The Ng Simoa assays were evaluated in CSF samples from AD patients (N = 23), mild cognitive impairment due to AD (MCI-AD) (N = 18), and from neurological controls (N = 26). Results The intra-assay repeatability and inter-assay precision of the novel methods had coefficients of variation below 7% and 14%, respectively. CSF FL-Ng and CSF CT-Ng median concentrations were increased in AD patients (6.02 ng/L, P < 0.00001 and 452 ng/L, P = 0.00001, respectively) and in patients with MCI-AD (5.69 ng/L, P < 0.00001 and 566 ng/L, P < 0.00001) compared to neurological controls (0.644 ng/L and 145 ng/L). The median CSF ratio of CT-Ng/FL-Ng were decreased in AD patients (ratio = 101, P = 0.008) and in patients with MCI-AD (ratio = 115, P = 0.016) compared to neurological controls (ratio = 180). CSF of FL-Ng, CT-Ng, and ratio of CT-Ng/FL-Ng could each significantly differentiate AD patients from controls (FL-Ng, AUC = 0.907; CT-Ng, AUC = 0.913; CT-Ng/FL-Ng, AUC = 0.775) and patients with MCI-AD from controls (FL-Ng, AUC = 0.937; CT-Ng, AUC = 0.963; CT-Ng/FL-Ng, AUC = 0.785). Conclusions Assessments of the FL-Ng and CT-Ng levels in CSF with the novel sensitive immunoassays provide a high separation of AD from controls, even in early phase of the disease. The novel Ng assays are robust and highly sensitive and may be valuable tools to study synaptic alteration in AD, as well as to monitor the effect on synaptic integrity of novel drug candidates in clinical trials.

[P2-288]: VALIDATION OF THE NOVEL DEMENTIA ASSESSMENT SCALE FOR ALZHEIMER's DISEASE: A THREE-DIMENSIONAL SCORING ALGORITHM RELEVANT FOR CLINICAL PRACTICE

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (7S_Part_15) ◽  
pp. P725-P726
Author(s):  
Takashi Kikuchi ◽  
Takahiro Mori ◽  
Shinsuke Kojima ◽  
Kenji Wada Isoe ◽  
Yumi Umeda Kameyama ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Assessment Scale ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Scoring Algorithm

Have you heard the one about the man with Alzheimer's disease?

BMJ ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 346 (may07 2) ◽  
pp. f2872-f2872
Author(s):  
S. Behrman
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
The One

scholarly journals Biological Evaluation of Newly Synthesized Biaryl Guanidine Derivatives to Arrest β-Secretase Enzymatic Activity Involved in Alzheimer’s Disease

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Sayyad Ali ◽  
Muhammad Hassham Hassan Bin Asad ◽  
Fahad Khan ◽  
Ghulam Murtaza ◽  
Albert A. Rizvanov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Biological Evaluation ◽  
Morris Water Maze Test ◽  
Pharmacokinetic Parameters ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Object Recognition Test ◽  
Promising Target

Proteases BACE1 (β-secretases) enzymes have been recognized as a promising target associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This study was carried out on the principles of molecular docking, chemical synthesis, and enzymatic inhibition of BACE1 enzymes via biaryl guanidine-based ligands. Based on virtual screening, thirteen different compounds were synthesized and subsequently evaluated via in vitro and in vivo studies. Among them, 1,3-bis(5,6-difluoropyridin-3-yl)guanidine (compound (9)) was found the most potent (IC50=97±0.91 nM) and active to arrest (99%) β-secretase enzymes (FRET assay). Furthermore, it was found to improve the novel object recognition test and Morris water maze test significantly (p<0.05). Improved pharmacokinetic parameters, viz., Log Po/w (1.76), Log S (-2.73), and better penetration to the brain (BBB permeation) with zero Lipinski violation, made it possible to hit the BACE1 as a potential therapeutic source for AD.

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