Controlled Quantized Study of Electroacupuncture in Treating Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease Based on Deep Learning Models

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 1076-1083
Author(s):  
Dejuan Xie ◽  
Xiaohong Li ◽  
Dawei Chen

The incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) in the world’s elderly over 65 is about 4% to 6%. Recent statistics show that there are nearly 40 million AD patients worldwide. According to the knowledge of neuroscience, there are two main biological indicators for the diagnosis of dementia in the medical community: one is the size of the hippocampus (equivalent to the brain memory chip), and the other is the size of the ventricle. Because the volume of the ventricles increases as the brain tissue degenerates. Because the cause of AD is unknown, it is generally found that it is late, even if the treatment will not have much effect. Therefore, early diagnosis of AD is a better way to inhibit the rapid development of the disease or even avoid the disease. At present, the pathogenesis and etiology of AD have not been fully elucidated, and there is a lack of a specific anti-AD drug. Electroacupuncture treatment of AD has been proven to have a certain effect, and has the advantages of diversified stimulation parameters, easy operation and no toxic side effects. In this paper, we study the role of electroacupuncture based on deep learning in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The experimental results can prove the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1315-1324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ahmad ◽  
Javed Ahmad ◽  
Saima Amin ◽  
Mahfoozur Rahman ◽  
Mohammad Anwar ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 6071
Author(s):  
Suzanne Gascon ◽  
Jessica Jann ◽  
Chloé Langlois-Blais ◽  
Mélanie Plourde ◽  
Christine Lavoie ◽  
...  

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a devastating neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive neuron losses in memory-related brain structures. The classical features of AD are a dysregulation of the cholinergic system, the accumulation of amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. Unfortunately, current treatments are unable to cure or even delay the progression of the disease. Therefore, new therapeutic strategies have emerged, such as the exogenous administration of neurotrophic factors (e.g., NGF and BDNF) that are deficient or dysregulated in AD. However, their low capacity to cross the blood–brain barrier and their exorbitant cost currently limit their use. To overcome these limitations, short peptides mimicking the binding receptor sites of these growth factors have been developed. Such peptides can target selective signaling pathways involved in neuron survival, differentiation, and/or maintenance. This review focuses on growth factors and their derived peptides as potential treatment for AD. It describes (1) the physiological functions of growth factors in the brain, their neuronal signaling pathways, and alteration in AD; (2) the strategies to develop peptides derived from growth factor and their capacity to mimic the role of native proteins; and (3) new advancements and potential in using these molecules as therapeutic treatments for AD, as well as their limitations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 3330
Author(s):  
Mehdi Eshraghi ◽  
Aida Adlimoghaddam ◽  
Amir Mahmoodzadeh ◽  
Farzaneh Sharifzad ◽  
Hamed Yasavoli-Sharahi ◽  
...  

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a debilitating neurological disorder, and currently, there is no cure for it. Several pathologic alterations have been described in the brain of AD patients, but the ultimate causative mechanisms of AD are still elusive. The classic hallmarks of AD, including am-yloid plaques (Aβ) and tau tangles (tau), are the most studied features of AD. Unfortunately, all the efforts targeting these pathologies have failed to show the desired efficacy in AD patients so far. Neuroinflammation and impaired autophagy are two other main known pathologies in AD. It has been reported that these pathologies exist in AD brain long before the emergence of any clinical manifestation of AD. Microglia are the main inflammatory cells in the brain and are considered by many researchers as the next hope for finding a viable therapeutic target in AD. Interestingly, it appears that the autophagy and mitophagy are also changed in these cells in AD. Inside the cells, autophagy and inflammation interact in a bidirectional manner. In the current review, we briefly discussed an overview on autophagy and mitophagy in AD and then provided a comprehensive discussion on the role of these pathways in microglia and their involvement in AD pathogenesis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md. Sahab Uddin ◽  
Md. Tanvir Kabir ◽  
Maroua Jalouli ◽  
Md. Ataur Rahman ◽  
Philippe Jeandet ◽  
...  

: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease characterized by the formation of intracellular neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) and extracellular amyloid plaques. Growing evidence has suggested that AD pathogenesis is not only limited to the neuronal compartment but also strongly interacts with immunological processes in the brain. On the other hand, aggregated and misfolded proteins can bind with pattern recognition receptors located on astroglia and microglia and can in turn induce an innate immune response, characterized by the release of inflammatory mediators, ultimately playing a role in both the severity and the progression of the disease. It has been reported by genome-wide analysis that several genes which elevate the risk for sporadic AD encode for factors controlling the inflammatory response and glial clearance of misfolded proteins. Obesity and systemic inflammation are examples of external factors which may interfere with the immunological mechanisms of the brain and can induce disease progression. In this review, we discussed the mechanisms and essential role of inflammatory signaling pathways in AD pathogenesis. Indeed, interfering with immune processes and modulation of risk factors may lead to future therapeutic or preventive AD approaches.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Young-Kook Kim ◽  
Juhyun Song

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in diverse physiological and pathological processes by modulating gene expression. They have been found to be dysregulated in the brain and cerebrospinal fluid of patients with neurodegenerative diseases, and are considered promising therapeutic targets for treatment. Among the various neurodegenerative diseases, diabetic Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been recently emerging as an important issue due to several unexpected reports suggesting that metabolic issues in the brain, such as insulin resistance and glucose dysregulation, could be important risk factors for AD. To facilitate understanding of the role of lncRNAs in this field, here we review recent studies on lncRNAs in AD and diabetes, and summarize them with different categories associated with the pathogenesis of the diseases including neurogenesis, synaptic dysfunction, amyloid beta accumulation, neuroinflammation, insulin resistance, and glucose dysregulation. It is essential to understand the role of lncRNAs in the pathogenesis of diabetic AD from various perspectives for therapeutic utilization of lncRNAs in the near future.


Author(s):  
Jingyan Qiu ◽  
Linjian Li ◽  
Yida Liu ◽  
Yingjun Ou ◽  
Yubei Lin

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most common forms of dementia. The early stage of the disease is defined as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Recent research results have shown the prospect of combining Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanning of the brain and deep learning to diagnose AD. However, the CNN deep learning model requires a large scale of samples for training. Transfer learning is the key to enable a model with high accuracy by using limited data for training. In this paper, DenseNet and Inception V4, which were pre-trained on the ImageNet dataset to obtain initialization values of weights, are, respectively, used for the graphic classification task. The ensemble method is employed to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the classification models and the result of different models are eventually processed through probability-based fusion. Our experiments were completely conducted on the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) public dataset. Only the ternary classification is made due to a higher demand for medical detection and diagnosis. The accuracies of AD/MCI/Normal Control (NC) of different models are estimated in this paper. The results of the experiments showed that the accuracies of the method achieved a maximum of 92.65%, which is a remarkable outcome compared with the accuracies of the state-of-the-art methods.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Gurvich ◽  
Kate Hoy ◽  
Natalie Thomas ◽  
Jayashri Kulkarni

Hormones of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis that regulate reproductive function have multiple effects on the development, maintenance and function of the brain. Sex differences in cognitive functioning have been reported in both health and disease, which may be partly attributed to sex hormones. The aim of the current paper was to provide a theoretical review of how sex hormones influence cognitive functioning across the lifespan as well as provide an overview of the literature on sex differences and the role of sex hormones in cognitive decline, specifically in relation to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). A summary of current hormone and sex-based interventions for enhancing cognitive functioning and/or reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease is also provided.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (21) ◽  
pp. 8338
Author(s):  
Kimberley D. Bruce ◽  
Maoping Tang ◽  
Philip Reigan ◽  
Robert H. Eckel

Lipoprotein lipase (LPL) is a key enzyme in lipid and lipoprotein metabolism. The canonical role of LPL involves the hydrolysis of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins for the provision of FFAs to metabolic tissues. However, LPL may also contribute to lipoprotein uptake by acting as a molecular bridge between lipoproteins and cell surface receptors. Recent studies have shown that LPL is abundantly expressed in the brain and predominantly expressed in the macrophages and microglia of the human and murine brain. Moreover, recent findings suggest that LPL plays a direct role in microglial function, metabolism, and phagocytosis of extracellular factors such as amyloid- beta (Aβ). Although the precise function of LPL in the brain remains to be determined, several studies have implicated LPL variants in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk. For example, while mutations shown to have a deleterious effect on LPL function and expression (e.g., N291S, HindIII, and PvuII) have been associated with increased AD risk, a mutation associated with increased bridging function (S447X) may be protective against AD. Recent studies have also shown that genetic variants in endogenous LPL activators (ApoC-II) and inhibitors (ApoC-III) can increase and decrease AD risk, respectively, consistent with the notion that LPL may play a protective role in AD pathogenesis. Here, we review recent advances in our understanding of LPL structure and function, which largely point to a protective role of functional LPL in AD neuropathogenesis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (18) ◽  
pp. 6739
Author(s):  
Sharmeelavathi Krishnan ◽  
Yasaswi Shrestha ◽  
Dona P. W. Jayatunga ◽  
Sarah Rea ◽  
Ralph Martins ◽  
...  

Neurodegenerative diseases result in a range of conditions depending on the type of proteinopathy, genes affected or the location of the degeneration in the brain. Proteinopathies such as senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain are prominent features of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Autophagy is a highly regulated mechanism of eliminating dysfunctional organelles and proteins, and plays an important role in removing these pathogenic intracellular protein aggregates, not only in AD, but also in other neurodegenerative diseases. Activating autophagy is gaining interest as a potential therapeutic strategy for chronic diseases featuring protein aggregation and misfolding, including AD. Although autophagy activation is a promising intervention, over-activation of autophagy in neurodegenerative diseases that display impaired lysosomal clearance may accelerate pathology, suggesting that the success of any autophagy-based intervention is dependent on lysosomal clearance being functional. Additionally, the effects of autophagy activation may vary significantly depending on the physiological state of the cell, especially during proteotoxic stress and ageing. Growing evidence seems to favour a strategy of enhancing the efficacy of autophagy by preventing or reversing the impairments of the specific processes that are disrupted. Therefore, it is essential to understand the underlying causes of the autophagy defect in different neurodegenerative diseases to explore possible therapeutic approaches. This review will focus on the role of autophagy during stress and ageing, consequences that are linked to its activation and caveats in modulating this pathway as a treatment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghulam Abbas ◽  
Wajahat Mahmood ◽  
Nurul Kabir

AbstractDespite their possible causative role, targeting amyloidosis, tau phosphorylation, acetylcholine esterase, glutamate, oxidative stress and mitochondrial metabolism have not yet led to the development of drugs to cure Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Recent preclinical and clinical reports exhibit a surge in interest in the role of GABAergic neurotransmission in the pathogenesis of AD. The interaction among GABAergic signaling, amyloid-β and acetylcholine is shown to affect the homeostasis between excitation (glutamate) and inhibition (GABA) in the brain. As a consequence, over-excitation leads to neurodegeneration (excitotoxicity) and impairment in the higher level functions. Previously, the glutamate arm of this balance received the most attention. Recent literature suggests that over-excitation is primarily mediated by dysfunctional GABA signaling and can possibly be restored by rectifying anomalous metabolism observed in the GABAergic neurons during AD. Additionally, neurogenesis and synaptogenesis have also been linked with GABAergic signaling. This association may provide a basis for the needed repair mechanism. Furthermore, several preclinical interventional studies revealed that targeting various GABA receptor subtypes holds potential in overcoming the memory deficits associated with AD. In conclusion, the recent scientific literature suggests that GABAergic signaling presents itself as a promising target for anti-AD drug development.


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