A close-up photo of a cannabis flower.
THC could help delay or prevent symptoms of #Alzheimers. Researchers at@uthealthsa.bsky.social, paired low doses of THC with the drug celecoxib in mouse-model studies. This blocked the negative effects of THC and boosted the positive ones.
🧠Read more: buff.ly/ZlQ9N2q
Image: The fairway of a golf course. Text: Environmental Toxins and Brain Disease Webinar Featuring Ray Dorsey, MD. Watch on YouTube.
April is #ParkinsonsAwarenessMonth. In a past webinar, Ray Dorsey, MD, discussed how environmental toxins present significant risks for diseases like Parkinson’s, what can be done to limit the impact of these toxins, where research efforts are focused, and more: buff.ly/h81YTMp
Research Discovery:Â Analyzing overnight sleep electroencephalography (EEG) data could be used to predict brain health.
Potential Applications: Long-range brain-health monitoring, early interventions, and more.
Key Findings: Using end-to-end deep-learning AI methods, scientists can convert collected EEG data into useful brain-health biomarkers and assign a single “score” related to cognition, disease status, and mortality.
What’s Next? This study helps address the need for objective, integrative biomarkers for brain health, and it could play a potential role in data-driven care.
@NEJM.org has published a study reporting that gathering sleeping patients’ #EEG data, and analyzing it with AI deep-learning methods, could lead to insight and predictions about #BrainHealth. #SleepMedicine
Parkinson's Disease Researcher Feature: Arjun Balachandar, MD. Dr. Balachandar will use a brain-machine interface to search for specific “brain signatures” that appear before and during episodes of “freezing of gait,” an understudied motor issue that occurs when Parkinson’s patients are unable to move their feet forward to walk. He then hopes to develop brain stimulation treatments to help patients regain their mobility.
Meet 2026 Next Gen. Researcher Arjun Balachandar, MD. He is studying freezing of gait, caused by Parkinson’s disease. He’ll use a brain-computer interface to develop brain stimulation treatments to help patients walk. Funded with the Parkinson’s Foundation. #WorldParkinsonsDay More: buff.ly/ZzpiAn5
The 2026 NOVA Neuro Conference will be held Saturday, April 25th, 2026 in Boston Massachusetts. The conference will feature Merit Cudkowicz, MD, MSc, Chief of Neurology at Mass General Hospital and American Brain Foundation Board Member. Joanne L. Smikle, PhD, Principal Consultant at Smikle Training Services and American Brain Foundation Board Member will lead the first keynote session of the day, titled Finding Your Why. The American Brain Foundation is proud to be a sponsor of this event.
We are proud to sponsor the NOVA Conference, April 25, in Boston, hosted by the Aging Initiative. Board members Joanne Smikle, PhD, and Merit Cudkowicz, MD, Msc, are featured speakers. NOVA brings together the best minds in brain aging. Registration required: buff.ly/QYCXzI7
Research Discovery: Older adults who get ten minutes of daily exercise—even leisurely exercise, like taking walks—have better brain health than their sedentary peers.
Research Topic: Cognitive aging.
Key Findings: Of a study of 279 older adults without dementia, those who engaged in at least ten consecutive minutes of daily exercise had fewer lesions in the white matter brain tissue and performed better on tests of executive function.
What’s Next? Further research could improve upon this study’s precision, by accounting for differing “modes” of exercise, for example. In addition to preventing brain lesions, regular exercise improves cardiovascular health, which supports brain health.
Rowan Saloner (Next Generation Researcher, 2024) and Gil Rabinovici (Potamkin Prize recipient 2025) contributed to study finding that older adults who get as little as ten minutes of low-intensity exercise per day have healthier brains than sedentary peers.
#ALS and #FTD are so closely related that scientists now refer to both as part of the ALS-FTD spectrum. Learn more in this updated blog post, which includes recent discoveries and references ABF-funded researchers currently investigating these diseases ➡️ buff.ly/EXNHzfi
Sadly, for every good #BrainResearch study we fund, there are three more that we can’t. Imagine how many more studies could go forward, and how much closer we could get to cures, with additional donor support. Your gifts make research happen. Thank you.
🔬 Donate ➡️ buff.ly/oo7hhRw 💓
The latest addition to our online Brain Diseases from A to Z section of our website focuses on ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder). #ADHD is one of the most common #MentalHealth conditions affecting children, though it also affects millions of adults.
🧠Learn more: buff.ly/kzZOyLF
We are excited and hopeful for the progress these researchers will make to bring medical science closer to better treatments, preventions, and cures.
To learn more about these researchers and their projects, you can read our blog ➡️ buff.ly/fubhZ8c
Dr. Chen-Plotkin and her team have developed two prototype tests for detecting elements of LBD, including measuring accumulations of alpha-synuclein proteins in in biofluids. This research could help in the development of blood-based biomarkers for the disease. Dr. Chen-Plotkin was also a recipient of an American Brain Foundation Next Generation Research Grant for ALS in 2008 and currently serves on the Foundation’s Research Advisory Committee.
Alice Chen-Plotkin, MD was awarded a #CureOneCureMany Award in #LewyBodyDementia.
Institution: @upenn.edu
This $1 million award is funded in collaboration with @alzassociation.bsky.social and The Michael J. Fox Foundation.
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Dr. Higginbotham and her team will employ machine-learning processes to make a comprehensive study of proteins in LBD plasma samples. This will help scientists better understand individual variability in LBD, and thereby help to improve precision in diagnosis, prediction, and treatment. Dr. Higginbotham was also a recipient of an American Brain Foundation Next Generation Research Grant for LBD in 2020.
Lenora Higginbotham, MD was awarded a #CureOneCureMany Award in #LewyBodyDementia.
Institution: @emorydeptofmed.bsky.social
This $1 million award is funded in collaboration with @alzassociation.bsky.social and The Michael J. Fox Foundation.
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Dr. Kizil and his team at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City will develop a first-in-class precision therapy that targets accumulation of the protein fibronectin and subsequent neuroinflammation at its source before irreversible damage and cognitive decline occur. This therapy could offer safer, genetically informed, and personalized treatment options for patients carrying the APOE-ε4 allele, which is the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.
Caghan Kizil, PhD was awarded a #CureOneCureMany Catalyst Award in #Neuroinflammation.
Institution: @columbiauniversity.bsky.social
This $500K award is funded with the National MS Society, Gates Ventures, NFL Players Association, Genentech, and WoodNext Foundation.
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Dr. Bennett and her team at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania will coordinate three different laboratories to study the neuroimmune mechanism of how microglia—the brain’s immune cells, which trigger neuroinflammation—transition into an early form called ISGMs (interferon-stimulated gene-expressing microglia). This could lead to new therapies that replace and engineer microglia to treat potentially hundreds of brain diseases.
Mariko Bennett, MD, PhD was awarded a #CureOneCureMany Catalyst Award in #Neuroinflammation.
Institution: @childrensphila.bsky.social
This $500K award is funded with the National MS Society, Gates Ventures, NFL Players Association, Genentech, and WoodNext Foundation.
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Dr. Rowitch and his team will study neuroinflammation and its role in multiple sclerosis, particularly regarding neurons that express the genetic marker CUX2. They will identify pathways for clinical intervention and develop approaches to enhance DNA repair after damage from neuroinflammation.
David Rowitch, MD, PhD was awarded a #CureOneCureMany Breakthrough Award in #Neuroinflammation.
Institution: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
This $2 million award is funded with the National MS Society, Gates Ventures, NFL Players Association, Genentech, and WoodNext Foundation.
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Dr. Dhindsa and his team, based at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, will leverage AI to analyze millions of gigabytes of data and identify human genetic variations that increase the risk of virally triggered Alzheimer’s disease and neuroinflammation. These studies could enable new antiviral and vaccination strategies to treat Alzheimer’s.
Ryan Dhindsa, MD, PhD was awarded a Breakthrough Award in #Neuroinflammation.
Institution: @bcmhouston.bsky.social, @bcmfromthelabs.bsky.social
This award is funded with the National MS Society, Gates Ventures, NFL Players Association, Genentech, and WoodNext Foundation.
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Introducing the 2026 Cure One, Cure Many Award Recipients! These researchers and their teams will conduct groundbreaking investigations hoping to find connections that will lead to cures.
Get to know the 6 brilliant research teams who were awarded American Brain Foundation Cure One, Cure Many Awards in 2026 and learn more about their incredible work. 🧠🔬 #BrainResearch #Neuroscience
Research Discovery: A protein called DOPA decarboxylase (DDC), which exists in cerebrospinal fluid, could be a quantitative biomarker for diagnosing Lewy body dementia (LBD) and Parkinson’s disease.
Diseases Affected: Lewy body dementia and Parkinson's disease.
Key Findings: Patients with LBD or Parkinson’s had 2.5 times higher concentrations of DDC in their cerebrospinal fluid than healthy patients. These levels are not seen in Alzheimer’s, which causes similar symptoms.
What's next? This study acknowledges some limitations, and advancing the discovery to clinical implementation would require further studies that are able to account for factors such as differing disease stages and possible associations with serotonergic dysfunction in different diseases.
We’re funding research to identify biomarkers for Lewy body dementia (LBD). In the meantime, a team at @amsterdamumc.bsky.social has identified the protein DOPA decarboxylase as a possible biomarker that differentiates #LBD from Alzheimer’s.
@nytimes.com reports on how tango lessons can be good therapy for #Parkinsons disease. Practicing tango has been found to help improve mobility and gait, and dancing together also gives patients a positive social and emotional boost:
Research Discovery: Babies can learn to categorize objects using visual cognition at just two months of age.
Diseases Affected: Potentially neurodevelopmental disorders.
Key Findings: By monitoring two-month-old babies with functional MRI as they were shown images and then using AI models to recognize patterns in the MRI brain activity, researchers discovered that infants are learning with visual cognition at a very early age.
What’s Next? This research provides a lot of data for future research about early brain development and what infants are thinking. Its successful use of fMRI with babies who are awake could expand that practice. It could even lead to the development of more efficient learning processes for AI, for lower economic and environmental impact.
Babies categorize objects at just two months old, far earlier than previously thought. Researchers at @tcddublin.bsky.social observed 130 two-month-old infants and recorded their fMRI brain activity patterns, which were analyzed using AI models. #Neurodevelopment #BrainResearch
Dr. Ryan S. Dhindsa @ryandhindsa.bsky.social has been awarded the American Brain Foundation’s @abfbrain.bsky.social Cure One, Cure Many #grant to advance new ways to prevent and treat #AlzheimersDisease. @bcmhouston.bsky.social #TexasChildrens www.bcm.edu/news/bcm-res...
Read about the recipients of the latest American Brain Foundation Cure One, Cure Many Awards in our latest blog! In the largest distribution of funding in ABF history, six researchers and their teams will study #neuroinflammation and #LewyBodyDementia. ⬇️ buff.ly/J98m8gY
Free Webinar: Menopause and the Brain. Explore what research is revealing about the surprising ways hormonal shifts impact brain health. Join us via Zoom on March 24th at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central to find out more.
Webinar tonight! At 8 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. CT, tune in to a free live webinar on how #menopause and hormones affect the brain. ABF Next Gen researchers Riley Bove, MD, and Maria Pia Campagna, PhD, will discuss hormonal shifts and #BrainHealth. Register here: buff.ly/UfKDIlC
Free Webinar: Menopause and the Brain. Explore what research is revealing about the surprising ways hormonal shifts impact brain health. Join us via Zoom on March 24th at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central to find out more.
Join a free webinar on #menopause and the brain, Tuesday, March 24 (8 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. CT). Featuring ABF Next Gen. grant recipients Drs. Riley Bove and Maria Pia Campagna, the discussion will explore how hormonal shifts affect brain health. Register now: buff.ly/tiK2lV8
March is Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month!
March is both #MultipleSclerosisAwarenessMonth and #AutoimmuneAwarenessMonth. Thank you to American Brain Foundation Global Ambassador Selma Blair for her advocacy on behalf of those living with MS and other autoimmune and brain diseases.
March 16 through March 22 is Brain Awareness Week. Make a donation today to support brain science and ensure that brain research continues. Your contribution will help researchers carry out studies that will bring us closer to better treatments, prevention, and cures for brain diseases.
Today marks the beginning of #BrainAwarenessWeek, a @danafoundation.bsky.social initiative to foster enthusiasm and support for brain science. One of the best ways to support brain science is to help fund research by making a gift to the American Brain Foundation.
Donate ➡️ buff.ly/WUQ9kke 💓
Research Discovery: Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy improves symptoms of myasthenia gravis.
Diseases Affected: Myasthenia gravis
Key Findings: In a phase 2B clinical trial, Researchers at the UNC School of Medicine found that a type of mRNA-based CAR T-cell immunotherapy called Descartes-08 significantly reduced patients’ symptoms of generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG) after 6 and 12 months.
What's next? A larger clinical trial will be conducted to confirm results in patients with a common subtype of gMG called anti-AChR antibody-positive disease.
Researchers at UNC School of Medicine and Cartesian Therapeutics have had success treating the symptoms of generalized #MyastheniaGravis with therapy that uses immune cells from a patient’s own blood to reduce production of harmful antibodies. #immunotherapy
Brittany Krzyzanowski, PhD, a 2024 Next Generation Research Grant recipient, has released a preliminary study finding that drinking water from newer groundwater is associated with a higher risk of #Parkinsons disease compared to older groundwater.
Today is #WorldSleepDay, which raises awareness about the important health benefits of sleep. This past ABF webinar features sleep expert Dr. Phyllis C. Zee, chair of our Research Advisory Committee. She explains why sleep is important for brain health.
Free Webinar: Menopause and the Brain. Explore what research is revealing about the surprising ways hormonal shifts impact brain health. Join us via Zoom on March 24th at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central to find out more.
Join a free webinar on #menopause and the brain, Tuesday, March 24 (8 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. CT). Featuring ABF Next Gen. grant recipients Drs. Riley Bove and Maria Pia Campagna, the discussion will explore how hormonal shifts affect #BrainHealth. Register now: buff.ly/ZnQi6IE
