A study published in the November issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (Volume 15:3) suggests the reliability of the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale – Cognitive (ADAS-Cog) may vary and possess the ability to affect clinical trial outcomes.

University of Illinois researchers report this week that chronic exposure to estradiol, the main estrogen in the body, diminishes some cognitive functions. Rats exposed to a steady dose of estradiol were impaired on tasks involving working memory and response inhibition, the researchers found.

As more adults age into the high-risk period for cognitive impairment, clinicians need simple and reliable methods to identify where they may have problems in everyday life that reveal underlying changes in the brain.

In our brains, where millions of signals move across a network of neurons like runners in a relay race, all the critical baton passes take place at synapses. These small gaps between nerve cell endings have to be just the right size for messages to transmit properly. Synapses that grow too large or too small are associated with motor and cognitive impairment, learning and memory difficulties, and other neurological disorders.

A higher periodic leg movement index (PLMI) predicted less sleep at night in older people with cognitive impairment and sleep disturbance, according to a study published in the February 1 issue of the journal SLEEP.

High blood pressure appears to be associated with an increased risk for mild cognitive impairment, a condition that involves difficulties with thinking and learning, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Alzheimer's patients have significantly more cortical damage than those with mild cognitive impairment

Findings from the first placebo-controlled study of chronic cognitive impairment after treated Lyme disease (also known as chronic Lyme encephalopathy) demonstrate that patients report moderate cognitive impairment, physical dysfunction comparable to patients with congestive heart failure, and fatigue comparable to patients with multiple sclerosis.

C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation that is often used to detect cardiovascular disease, may also indicate cognitive impairment in children with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to a new study of children ages 5 to 7.

A study of how the brain of a premature infant responds to injury has found vulnerabilities similar to those in the mature brain but also identified at least one significant difference, according to neuroscientists and neonatologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Individuals with diabetes may have a higher risk of developing mild cognitive impairment, a condition that involves difficulties with thinking and learning and may be an intermediate step toward Alzheimer's disease, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.