A neurologist's personal battle against Alzheimer's disease
The amyloid hypothesis has been the dominant theory for the cause of Alzheimer’s disease for over 20 years. In brief, the theory holds that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by accumulation of beta-amyloid that damages...
In 1978, I was in the fifth year of the six-year Medical Scientist Training Program leading to MD and PhD degrees at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. It was a rigorous program, but I...
While enjoying the July 4th holiday on the Oregon Coast with my family this weekend, I reread Thomas DeBaggio’s memoir of his early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. It was published in 2000, two years after his diagnosis...
So far, several trials of anti-amyloid monoclonal antibodies have failed to provide unequivocal evidence of reversing or even slowing cognitive decline in subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or mild Alzheimer’s dementia, despite marked...
My father, Zack Gibbs, was 44 when I was born in 1951. He died of cancer 16 years later at age 60. Throughout his life he had been a tinkerer. He liked to build things...
As I have discussed in previous posts, evidence of beta-amyloid plaques can be found in the brains of people up to 20 years prior to the onset of cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease....
When we are young, the timeline of our lives stretches from our earliest memories to our expectations for the future. As the cognitive impairment of Alzheimer’s disease progresses, that timeline begins to constrict. Perhaps surprisingly,...
In a previous post I described recent research showing that patients with even mild COVID have shrinkage of several brain areas associated with olfaction and memory. We don’t know yet if these changes to the...
Over the last ten years or so, there have been an increasing number of studies that generally agree that those who regularly consume a plant-based, Mediterranean-style diet, are less likely to get Alzheimer’s dementia...
Amazing as it might seem, Viacom recently bought the film rights to my book, A Tattoo on my Brain: A Neurologist’s Personal Battle against Alzheimer’s Disease. Production of a planned 40-minute documentary is already underway....
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