Message from the Director Dear Friends of UCI MIND, Please enjoy the latest issue of MIND Matters from UCI MIND. In this Spring issue, we highlight a number of exciting updates about the impact UCI MIND investigators are having in the field. On the cover, post-doctoral fellow Dr. Claire Butler highlights progress made by the collaborative MODEL-AD group, including a publication she led. Another post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Jessica Noche, highlights an exciting collaboration in which UCI MIND ...| UCI MIND
A June 17 article in the Los Angeles Times highlighted an important safety risk associated with the new class of medications recently approved for treating Alzheimer’s disease. The drugs are anti-amyloid monoclonal antibodies and include aducanumab, donanemab, and lecanemab. Of these, only lecanemab has achieved full FDA approval at the time of writing. The side effects are collectively known as amyloid-related imaging abnormalities, or ARIA, and are potential side effects for each of these...| UCI MIND
Today, the FDA convened its Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee to review the data from pivotal clinical trials of donanemab, a monoclonal antibody against the beta amyloid protein that accumulates in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s disease. One of these trials was conducted at UCI MIND. The efficacy of donanemab in treating early Alzheimer’s disease in people with Mild Cognitive Impairment and mild dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease is largely agreed to...| UCI MIND
For patients experiencing cognitive decline due to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), choosing the most appropriate treatment course at the right time is of great importance. A key element to these decisions is the careful consideration of the available scientific evidence, particularly from randomized clinical trials (RCTs) such as the recent lecanemab trial. Translating RCT results into patient-level decisions, however, can be challenging. This is because trial results tell us about the outcomes o...| UCI MIND