Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[Investor2014]

Absent Aß, Blood-Brain Barrier Breakdown Predicts Cognitive Impairment

https://www.alzforum.org/news/research-news/absent-av-blood-brain-barrier-breakdown-predicts-cognitive-impairment

Note that the P2b/3 AD trial will be doing this;
“All of the volunteers underwent CSF sampling to assess Aß and phospho-tau, and a subgroup of 35 also had Aß-PET scans.”

“Notably, these relationships between BBB damage and cognition held regardless of CSF Aß or p-tau biomarker status. In fact, BBB damage predicted impairment regardless of hippocampal volume, vascular risk scores, or age as well. Interestingly, neither CSF sPDGFR-ß nor DCE-MRI measures of BBB permeability changed with age. In all, the findings suggest that hippocampal BBB damage, and its cognitive toll, occurs outside of the normal trajectory of aging, and is distinct from impairment caused by overall vascular dysfunction, or Aß and tau pathology, the researchers concluded.”

I think this is interesting to the Aß and tau cause/pathology debate. Seems to me that fixing up mitochondrial dysfunction is a good bet while science works out the root cause(s) of AD.