• BMB Reports
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.295-304
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• 2021

Olfactory neuropathology is a cause of olfactory loss in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Olfactory dysfunction is also associated with memory and cognitive dysfunction and is an incidental finding of AD dementia. Here we review neuropathological research on the olfactory system in AD, considering both structural and functional evidence. Experimental and clinical findings identify olfactory dysfunction as an early indicator of AD. In keeping with this, amyloid-β production and neuroinflammation are related to underlying causes of impaired olfaction. Notably, physiological features of the spatial map in the olfactory system suggest the evidence of ongoing neurodegeneration. Our aim in this review is to examine olfactory pathology findings essential to identifying mechanisms of olfactory dysfunction in the development of AD in hopes of supporting investigations leading towards revealing potential diagnostic methods and causes of early pathogenesis in the olfactory system.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.208-215
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to explain the pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to investigate the correlation between AD and microRNA. AD is the most common type of dementia, accounting for about 80% of all types of dementia, causing dysfunction in various daily activities such as memory loss, cognitive impairment, and behavioral impairment. The typical pathology of AD is explained by the accumulation of beta-amyloid peptide plaques and neurofibrillary tangles containing hyperphosphorylated tau protein. On the other hand, microRNA is small non-coding RNA 22~23 nucleotides in length that binds to the 3' untranslated region of messenger RNA to inhibit gene expression. Many reports explain that microRNAs found in circulating biofluids are abundant in the central nervous system, are involved in the pathogenic mechanism of AD, and act as important factors for early diagnosis and therapeutic agents of AD. Therefore, this paper aims to clarify the correlation between AD and microRNA. In this review, the basic mechanism of miRNAs is described, and the regulation of miRNAs in the pathological processes of AD are highlighted. Furthermore, we suggest that miRNA-based system in development of therapeutic and diagnostic agents of AD can be a promising tool.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.24-30
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• 2023

Objectives Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia in older adults, damaging the brain and resulting in impaired memory, thinking, and behavior. The identification of differentially expressed genes and related pathways among affected brain regions can provide more information on the mechanisms of AD. The aim of our study was to identify differentially expressed genes associated with AD and combined biomarkers among them to improve AD risk prediction accuracy. Methods Machine learning methods were used to compare the performance of the identified combined biomarkers. In this study, three publicly available gene expression datasets from the hippocampal brain region were used. Results We detected 31 significant common genes from two different microarray datasets using the limma package. Some of them belonged to 11 biological pathways. Combined biomarkers were identified in two microarray datasets and were evaluated in a different dataset. The performance of the predictive models using the combined biomarkers was superior to those of models using a single gene. When two genes were combined, the most predictive gene set in the evaluation dataset was ATR and PRKCB when linear discriminant analysis was applied. Conclusions Combined biomarkers showed good performance in predicting the risk of AD. The constructed predictive nomogram using combined biomarkers could easily be used by clinicians to identify high-risk individuals so that more efficient trials could be designed to reduce the incidence of AD.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.506-514
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• 2023

Dementia has become one of the most important diseases threatening human health. Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) have the highest incidence rates among the types of dementia, but until now, therapeutic methods have been limited. Panax ginseng has been used in China for thousands of years to treat dementia, and modern medical studies have found that it contains multiple active components, such as ginsenosides, polysaccharides, amino acids, volatile oils and polyacetylenes, many of which have therapeutic effects in treating AD and VaD. Studies have found that ginsenosides have multitarget therapeutic effects in treating dementia, such as regulation of synaptic plasticity and the cholinergic system, inhibition of Aβ aggravation and tau hyperphosphorylation, anti-neuroinflammation, anti-oxidation effects and anti-apoptosis effects. Other active components of Panax ginseng, such as gintonin, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides and ginseng proteins, also have therapeutic effects on AD and VaD. The effectiveness of ginseng-containing Chinese medicine compounds has also been confirmed by clinical and basic investigations in treating AD and VaD. In this review, we summarized the potential therapeutic effects and related mechanisms of Panax ginseng in treating AD and VaD to provide some examples for further studies.

• Dementia and Neurocognitive Disorders
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.17-29
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• 2022

Background and Purpose: Verbal and nonverbal fluency tests are the conventional methods for examining executive function in the elderly population. However, differences in impairments result in fluency tests in patients with mild cognitive impairments (MCIs) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) and in neural correlates underlying the tests still necessitate concrete evidence. Methods: We compared the test performances in 27 normal controls, 28 patients with MCI, and 20 with AD, and investigated morphological changes in association with the test performances using structural magnetic imaging. Results: Patients with AD performed poorly across all the fluency tests, and a receiver operating characteristics curve analysis revealed that only category fluency test discriminated all the 3 groups. Association, category, and design fluency tests involved temporal and frontal regions, while letter fluency involved the cerebellum and caudate. Conclusions: Category fluency is a reliable measure for screening patients with AD and MCI, and this efficacy might be related to morphological correlates that underlie semantic and executive processing.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.81 no.3
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• pp.488-500
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• 2020

Accumulating evidence suggests that Alzheimer's disease (AD) is not only caused by accumulation of abnormal proteins, including amyloid and tau, but is also closely associated with abnormalities in the microvascular environment including the blood-brain barrier (BBB), both of which lead to neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. Application of in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has recently increased to assess BBB permeability in AD and related diseases. Here, we provide a narrative review of BBB permeability-related pathology in Alzheimer dementia and recent MRI research on BBB permeability changes in AD and related diseases. Furthermore, we briefly introduce the measurement of BBB permeability using MRI and its methodological issues.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.1-13
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• 2003

The purpose of this study is to understand the importance of exterior environments and to identify the design guidelines for the therapeutic garden for cognitively impaired seniors with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. The data was collected from 4 Adult Day Care Centers, 2 Nursing Homes, & 1 Assisted living in the U.S.A. from 2001 to 2002 by interview and the floor plan about the outdoor space. Although some may believe that patients with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders are unresponsive to environment, evidence shows that environments especially designed for cognitively impaired seniors can maintain or increase their level of functioning. The use of specially designed exterior environments nay have in reducing incidents of aggressive behavior, and contributing significantly to a wanderer management program. The checklist includes 6 dimensions： safety environment, various sensual stimulations, social interactions, wandering, privacy, and support orientation and reality. The results indicated that the exterior environment have to support wandering behavior, orientation and reality.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.105-113
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• 2019

This study examined the effects of geriatric depression and geriatric stress on cognitive impairment. In particular, the dementia groups were divided into Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. A normal group was used as the control group. For each group, the geriatric depression using the geriatric depression scale (GDS) and geriatric stress using the geriatric stress scale (GSS) was compared with the regression and correlation results of cognitive impairment. Statistical tests, such as descriptive statistics, Kruskall-Wallis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis, were performed. For the Alzheimer's group, the GDS and GSS correlated with the cognitive impairment, but only the GDS showed a cause-and-effect relationship with cognitive impairment. In particular, the male group with Alzheimer's disease showed clear confirmation. In addition, geriatric stress was found to be associated with geriatric depression. In conclusion, geriatric depression affects the cognitive impairment directly and geriatric stress affects the cognitive ability indirectly through geriatric depression. In this study, the Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, and control groups had a small sample size. Therefore, the external validity in future studies can be increased using a larger sample size for each group.

• Nutritional Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.165-173
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• 2004

This paper reviews the available published literature on the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and COX-2 inhibition properties of phycocyanin from Spirulina. The potential application of for the prevention and mitigation of such radical-induced chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease, and age-related degenerative diseases like Alzheimer＇s disease, Parkinson＇s disease, diabetes and other conditions are discussed based on the available evidence.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.181-189
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between "Mental Status and Dementia Tests" and "predictive diagnosis of severity of dementia". This is a descriptive research, analyze the data collected from Alzheimer's patients and identify which "Mental Status and Dementia Tests" has the most impact to determine the severity of dementia. For this study, Alzheimer's patient's CDR, MMSE-K, SGDS, NPI-Q, BADL and IADL were collected and analyzed. This study will provide a predictive factor to determine the severity of dementia when "Mental Status and Dementia Testss" are being used and also to provide the right treatment. For this study, a total of 617 cases of data from Alzheimer's patients were collected and analyzed with SPSS Statistics. In addition, effective "Mental Status and Dementia Tests" for evaluating the severity of dementia were CDR, ADL, MMSE-K, and SGDS whereas NPI-Q and IADL. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended to implement more efficient diagnostic method by utilizing a standardized "Mental Status and Dementia Tests".