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Alzheimer’s and Dementia

Oct 09

USC celebrates International Day of Older Persons

By Alzheimer's and Dementia, Community Service, Demography, Featured, Health and Wellness, Intergenerational, Lifespan Health, School Culture, Students
To mark the United Nations-created holiday, the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology led campus-wide events raising awareness of the opportunities and challenges related to our aging society. Continue Reading USC celebrates International Day of Older Persons
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Sep 03

Donna Benton Named to California’s Master Plan for Aging Stakeholder Advisory Committee

By Alzheimer's and Dementia, Caregiving, Community Service, Demography, Diversity, Featured
Benton, director of the USC Family Caregiver Support Center, joins a group of civic leaders who will help to develop components of California's Master Plan for Aging. Continue Reading Donna Benton Named to California’s Master Plan for Aging Stakeholder Advisory Committee
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Jun 19

Professor Christian Pike: Sex differences in Alzheimer’s disease

By Alzheimer's and Dementia, Lifespan Health, Podcast, Research

Christian Pike, Professor of Gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, discusses his research on sex differences in Alzheimer’s disease and how they can help inform how we might one day prevent and treat it.

 Quotes from this episode

“… Maybe there are situations where the disease, although it’s the same disease, it works a little bit different in men than it does women. And maybe we should consider that in terms of the risk factors for developing it and even how we approach it therapeutically.”

“If you look at clinical trials of Alzheimer’s disease drugs, almost all of them are failed.”

“You can’t control your genetics. At least you can’t yet. But you can control your environment and your lifestyle what we call modifiable risk factors. And so what everybody can do is deal with those now. while we’re, while we’re waiting to get the treatments.”

“There are so many differences between men and women in Alzheimer’s disease. I mean, at the core of it, the disease is very much the same across all people. But then when you begin to break it down into the effects of different risk factors, you begin to see significant differences.”

“And in recent years there’s been a greater emphasis on sex differences in the more we look, the more differences between the male brain and the female brain that we find.”

Learn more about Professor Pike and his work at https://gero.usc.edu/faculty/pike/

Oct 19
Brendan Miller by Fiona Pestana

Brendan Miller earns young investigator award from Alzheimer’s Los Angeles

By Alzheimer's and Dementia, Honors and Awards, Mitochondria, Q&A, Students

Brendan Miller is a neuroscience PhD student in the Cohen Lab. Miller, who recently earned a Young Investigator Award from Alzheimer’s Los Angeles (ALZLA), spoke to us about his research studying mitochondrial mutations in Alzheimer’s disease.

Q: What are you hoping to discover?

A: We know that mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the earliest hallmarks of Alzheimer’s, but it’s still unclear what is actually driving that dysfunction. I am hoping that we can find new mitochondrial gene mutations that are driving that dysfunction, and then we can take models that have that mutation and try to fix them.

Q: How do you find these mutations?

A: It’s a two-step process. First, we are doing big data studies to identify mutations, and then we bring it down to a molecular level — replicating those mutations in cells — to see what they’re actually doing, and trying to find the mechanism.

Q: What is the most exciting aspect of this work?

A: Most of the genetic studies that have been published have not looked at the mitochondrial DNA. There could be hundreds of really small mitochondrial genes that have been overlooked. We are looking at mutations in these small mitochondrial genes. It is exciting to see if we can look at this uncharted landscape, identify which small genes are important and eventually target treatments toward them.

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