Down Syndrome

2022 - 12 - 11

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Image courtesy of "Akron Beacon Journal"

Holly Christensen: Alzheimer's research in people with Down ... (Akron Beacon Journal)

Growing evidence suggests that lifestyle choices can minimize the likelihood of a person developing dementia.

Families know how hard their loved ones with Down syndrome work from the first day of life. There is great promise that in the coming decades a diagnosis of DS will no longer mean that dementia is nearly inevitable. Head and her team as well as other DS researchers around the world. Head's team look for biomarkers to identify who is on the trajectory to developing dementia and — just as important — who is not. We now know that by their 40s the brains of people with DS will have acquired the pathologies, or physical changes, for Alzheimer's (such as amyloid plaques) with most becoming symptomatic in their 50s. The life expectancy of a baby born with Down syndrome in the 1980s was 25. Elizabeth Head](https://profiles.icts.uci.edu/elizabeth.head), a neuropathology core co-investigator at the [Alzheimer's Disease Research Center](https://mind.uci.edu/adrc/about/) at University of California Irvine. "What works for someone in their 40s might not work well for someone in their 30s." Many of us were meeting each other, as well as many of our babies, in person for the first time. While she collaborates with researchers studying Alzheimer's in the general population, her research is focused specifically on the Down syndrome population. The first year of my daughter's life felt like graduate school on all things Down syndrome (DS). The groups are organized by the ages of their children with DS.

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Image courtesy of "WTHITV.com"

Knox county high school senior with Down syndrome named ... (WTHITV.com)

Audrey Parish is a student at South Knox High School. Her favorite classes are art and food science. She enjoys spending time with her best friend, Taylor, and ...

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Image courtesy of "CGTN"

'We Talk' World Cup Edition: Football dreams of children with Down ... (CGTN)

In Russia, children with Down syndrome still face many obstacles in integrating into society, but football is a unique therapy for them.

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Image courtesy of "National Institutes of Health"

Alzheimer's progression in Down syndrome appears similar to other ... (National Institutes of Health)

Plaques are composed largely of aggregated amyloid beta proteins, which are encoded by the amyloid precursor protein (APP) gene and found on chromosome 21.

The authors concluded that people with Down syndrome may experience a very similar pattern of brain amyloid accumulation to that seen in people with early-onset forms of Alzheimer’s. Overall, the amount of amyloid burden was similar in the brains of people with Down syndrome to those who carry the gene variants for early-onset forms of Alzheimer’s disease. [cerebral cortex](https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/public-education/brain-basics/brain-basics-know-your-brain), the outermost layer of the brain. “Future advances in understanding Alzheimer’s in people with Down syndrome may contribute to insights into other forms of the disease.” One difference between the two groups was seen in the pattern of brain amyloid plaque formation. For the current study, researchers periodically conducted MRI and amyloid positron emission tomography scans of the brains of people with Down syndrome. “Studies like this can help researchers understand the commonalities or differences in pathways that mediate brain damage in distinct at-risk populations, such as those with Down syndrome and those with dominantly inherited early-onset Alzheimer’s. The study involved 192 individuals with Down syndrome and 33 sibling controls from the ABC-DS trial. Based on the largest study of its kind to date, the findings suggest that individuals with Alzheimer’s and Down syndrome may benefit from participating in studies on Alzheimer’s therapies aimed at slowing formation of amyloid plaques. “The similarity suggests that there may be common mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease in people with Down syndrome and other inherited forms of Alzheimer’s,” said Diana W. [Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN)(link is external)](https://www.alzheimers.gov/clinical-trials/dominantly-inherited-alzheimer-network-dian) and the [Alzheimer’s Biomarkers Consortium–Down Syndrome (ABC-DS)(link is external)](https://www.alzheimers.gov/clinical-trials/alzheimers-biomarkers-consortium-down-syndrome). Because people with Down syndrome are born with an extra full or partial copy of chromosome 21, they have three copies of the APP gene.

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