Clinical update: Alzheimer’s – A number of recent studies targeting the amyloid pathway in Alzheimer’s disease have proved negative, and there is now some doubt as to whether amyloid plays as central a role in the disease as had previously been thought. Experts have recently proposed that amyloid may be a necessary but not sufficient [...]

The APOE epsilon4 allele is a well described genetic marker that increases susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease in later life. Researchers from Trinity College and St James’s Hospital, Dublin — in association with international colleagues — have now described two further candidate genes that may help increase understanding of the disease. A study in Nature Genetics, [...]

Rory Hafford looks at conditions associated with damaged basal ganglia, including Restless Leg Syndrome and Parkinsonism It is easy to see, back in the day when medicine was grappling for some sort of evidence base, how the diagnosis of ‘possession’ was all the rage. Just consider for a moment the array of disorders issuing forth [...]

Experts want a more sophisticated approach to managing chronic pain. But this is a challenge for a condition that is still not well understood, writes Gary Finnegan The move during the past decade to recognise chronic pain as a disease in its own right has added momentum to anaesthetists’ efforts to have pain taken seriously. [...]

Individuals who screen positive for possible depression appear to consume more chocolate than those not screening positive for depression, according to a new report. The report followed a study in which doctors examined the relationship between chocolate and mood among 931 women and men who were not using antidepressants. Participants reported how much chocolate they [...]

Dr Rory Shelley, Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Lecturer at St John of God Hospital and TCD, examines the management of hypomania and mania in primary care GPs are positioned to play a crucial role in the management of mania and its less severe form, hypomania. In this regard, there are two aspects of an elevated [...]

Marie-Catherine Mousseau explains how the scientific study of the condition called synaesthesia opens a window on the mind and brain Letter ‘Q’ is purple, number 7 is angry at number 8, my husband’s voice tastes like butter, what else…? Oh yes, May floats over my left shoulder. This is not nonsense talk from a deluded [...]

The risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) later in life is higher for children born in November-December compared with those born May-June, according to a new Australian study. The results are consistent with previous research that found a reciprocal pattern in the northern hemisphere, where there were more cases of multiple sclerosis among people born [...]

Clinical update: Parkinson’s disease – There are multiple problems, which are not related to dopamine, at the end stages of Parkinson’s disease (PD) for which there are no effective treatments. Patients at the end may have memory problems, pain, depression, falls and urinary difficulties. Though it is the easiest to manipulate, dopamine is not the [...]

Clinical update: Parkinson’s disease – A landmark paper from the UK Parkinson’s Brain Bank over 25 years ago looked at patients who had died with a condition that was thought at the time to be Parkinson’s disease (PD). Pathologically, a total of 24 per cent of them did not have PD. Thus, they were misdiagnosed [...]