First amyloid PET data I've seen so far in #DownSyndrome from Brazil (Mantovani et al) - found region-specific inflammation linked to amyloid. Important milestone for global equity in DS- #alzheimers research, exciting implications for future prevention studies that are truly global. bit.ly/3IiLjqQ
Posts by Amit Das
As ICE ramps up immigration arrests in MA, it's started holding people in office building near the Burlington Mall.
The facility is not designed to be a detention facility. People are sleeping on concrete floors and lack access to sinks for handwashing
www.wbur.org/news/2025/06... @wbur.org
This commentary from Maure-Blesa et al. captures the history of #downsyndrome -assoc. #alzheimers disease beautifully. It's been a long journey to get to this point, and there's still a long journey ahead as we push for prevention, but the reason to be hopeful has never been greater! bit.ly/3Hv6qG0
This is a paradigm shift in the way we think about #alzheimers #AD and should be shared widely. #neuroskyence #neuroscience
Bullying students and schools to provoke fear and silence dissent is how we trade democracy and freedom for authoritarianism. This will affect nearly a third of Harvard's students. We cannot be silent.
Really interesting article from Witt, Shaffer, Torres, & Santoro about recruiting diverse groups of people with #downsyndrome for research. Key point: to achieve diversity, you have to intentionally seek out diversity. Science conducted in a vacuum will fail the generalizability test. bit.ly/3H0yNeI
“Department of Government Efficiency.”
The head of our country’s government is in the early stages of consolidating total power. We must of course reject this, but that is not enough. We have to respond by creating a different and better kind of American politics than we have seen before.
Hi, I write about science for STAT. We've been closely tracking the Trump Administration's cuts. And right now, we're speaking to folks whose graduate school/postdoc offers have been rescinded, to get a sense of the toll.
If anyone has interest, I'm reachable by DM or by Signal at JasonMast.05
Rümeysa Öztürk should be at home in Somerville celebrating Ramadan with her friends and community.
Trump Administration political operatives manipulating the scientific research process, picking and choosing which communities of patients will and will not get help. What could go wrong?
Isn't the article saying that measures of cognitive decline aren't useful in predicting low-level amyloid deposition in a clinically unimpaired population? I'm not sure we can conclude amyloid's casual relationship with cognitive decline within a population that has no cognitive decline, right?
Want to understand the latest #downsyndrome #alzheimers clinical trials in a way that's accessible and easy to understand? Check out this family- and caregiver-oriented explainer that I helped my foundation put together! bit.ly/4ixNqnz
I just posted a new blog entry on Medium describing a couple of Kate's self-chosen strategies for dealing with the effects of her daily battle with Early Onset Alzheimer's #DownSyndrome #Alzheimers medium.com/@amykolbtuck...
Thank you so much for sharing!
The institutional Democratic Party is guided by an almost pathological level of conflict avoidance in almost every direction. “What can we do to make the least number of people mad?” is just a bankrupt way to operate.
“…dysfunction of the #blood–brain barrier and #inflammation in the central nervous system in individuals with #Down syndrome regression disorder (DSRD).” #DSRD could be an inflammatory condition affecting the brain. bit.ly/4bSbL51 [open access] bit.ly/4kQKCDA
Astonishing in the breadth and depth of harm this proposal would inflict directly on 16 million people across every congressional district in the United States. Then add the ripple effects on the health of others in every community, the economic losses, the societal upheaval.
This is not cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse." Pure and simple, this is undermining the science necessary to deliver better means of preventing, diagnosing, treating, and eventually curing diseases like #Alzheimers, #cancer, #diabetes, #stroke, #glaucoma, etc.
#dementia #mentalhealth #NIH #science
I know I'm a broken record on this, but that’s why silencing APP is such an important therapeutic strategy for DS-AD. Nature has already given us the proof of concept in reverse—we just have to find out if it works in clinical trials. The case for APP-targeting therapies keeps growing. (5/5)
If extra APP accelerates Alzheimer’s, reducing APP could have the opposite effect. Two well-documented cases of people with DS who were born without the extra APP copy never developed Alzheimer’s, reinforcing the idea that targeting APP could delay or prevent DS-associated Alzheimer’s. (4/5)
This supports a gene dose effect—more APP copies mean earlier Alzheimer’s. It’s highly relevant for people with Down syndrome, who have three copies of APP in all cells, just like the daughter in this case. Nearly all adults with DS develop Alzheimer’s, typically in their early 50s. (3/5)
A mother had a rare chromosomal rearrangement, leading some of her cells to have an extra APP copy. Her daughter inherited a full APP triplication in every cell. Both developed early-onset Alzheimer’s, but at very different ages: the mother at 58, the daughter at just 34. (2/5)
Sometimes tragic things in nature reveal how we might improve lives. A new case report shows how extra copies of the APP gene can cause #Alzheimers, just like in #DownSyndrome. This strengthens the case for APP-targeting therapies to delay or prevent DS-associated Alzheimer’s. bit.ly/3X5QcYS (1/5)
Trying to understand the #MAHA calculus on #Alzheimers: An "amyloid cabal" has taken over AD research. Per Alzforum, "black people with dementia are less likely to have amyloid". To move past the cabal's "agenda", we need more diverse Alzheimer's research. But that's... woke? 🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔 bit.ly/42V4EXe
@petebuttigieg.bsky.social it's obvious that people want structural change in this country, and it's equally obvious that the changes happening now will hurt almost everyone. Why not define and popularize an agenda to structurally reform the country in a way that actually serves the people now?
There is no ‘amyloid cabal’ in #Alzheimers research www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/a... via @statnews.com
#dementia #neuroscience #science #NeuroSky
So #RFKjr wants to fire people at the NIH involved in "amyloid plaque scandals that derailed #Alzheimers treatment for 20 years". The horror of a deeply uneducated man leading the #NIH aside, that amyloid research *is* the reason my brother with #downsyndrome has a chance to never get AD in his life