Neuro Rehab, the UK's leading event for rehabilitation professionals, brings you the latest research findings from studies conducted around the world. These studies explore various pioneering treatments for patients affected by neurological conditions or injuries, and potential new ways of improving diagnosis and long-term outcomes
Dementia: Study finds three midlife health factors that could delay dementia for 13 years
Having normal blood pressure, no diabetes, and not smoking between the ages of 48 to 68 could delay the onset of dementia by 13 years, a new study shows.
Researchers at NYU Langone Health researchers found that the presence of these risk factors is linked to both accelerated dementia onset and shortened overall dementia-free lifespans.
“Our findings argue that people need to actively avert these factors in midlife as a strategy for preserving brain health for more than a decade,” said study senior investigator Josef Coresh, founding director of the Optimal Aging Institute.
For the study, researchers analysed data in the community-based Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study, which started in 1986 and followed Americans for decades into late life.
The new analysis looked at 12,409 people with an average age of 56 who were free of dementia. Participants were assessed for three risk factors: high blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking. They were then followed for about three decades, with an average follow-up of 26 years.
During that time, 3,008 developed dementia and 5,238 people died without developing dementia. Those who had no risk factors lived without developing dementia nearly 13 years longer than people with the three risk factors.
The team also sought to determine how cardiovascular risk factors in midlife influenced dementia-free survival across demographics.
Women with all three risk factors lived an average of 18.1 years from the start of tracking without developing dementia, compared to 16.6 years for male study participants.
White participants with all three risk factors lived an average of 19.6 years without developing dementia, compared to 16.0 years for Black participants.
“These results suggest that vascular risk reduction may benefit all groups, but that certain populations, such as Black adults, may especially benefit from targeted prevention efforts,” Dr. Coresh added.
Parkinson’s: First stem-cell brain transplant for Parkinson’s passes safety test
The first-ever stem-cell brain transplant for Parkinson’s disease has passed an initial safety test.
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have shown that transplanting stem-cell derived dopamine progenitor cells into the brain is feasible.
Eight patients were treated in the clinical trial and no serious side effects directly linked to the transplanted cells were seen during the first year of follow up.
In Parkinson’s disease, patients lose nerve cells in the brain that produce dopamine which leads to symptoms such as slowness of movement, stiffness, gait disturbance and tremor.
The current treatments are medications that replace the lost dopamine, but over time these medications often become less effective and cause side effects.
The therapy tested in the current trial aims to replace the cells that produce dopamine with a stem cell-based dopamine nerve cell product.
The hope is that, after being transplanted, the cells will mature into new dopamine-producing nerve cells in the brain.
“The possibility of replacing dopamine neurons that are lost in Parkinson’s disease has been a long-standing goal in the field,” said Malin Parmar, Professor of Cellular Neuroscience at Lund University, Sweden, and lead of the STEM-PD program.
“The findings represent an important milestone for regenerative medicine approaches in Parkinson’s disease and support continued clinical development of stem cell-based therapies.”
Eight individuals with Parkinson’s disease received the transplanted cell product at two different doses, followed by 12 months of immunosuppression to prevent graft rejection.
Seven participants completed the 12-month follow-up. One participant died from a lung infection that was not directly related to the cell product.
The surgical procedure was generally well tolerated, and none of the participants developed involuntary movements caused by the graft, researchers say.
Dopamine PET scans provided early signs that the transplanted cells had survived six and 12 months after the procedure.
Six of the seven participants substantially reduced their dopaminergic medication, a result that will be evaluated over time.
Roger Barker, Professor of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, clinical lead of STEM-PD and clinical principal investigator at the UK site, said: “This represents an exciting new departure on repairing the brain of individuals with Parkinson’s using dopamine cells- an approach pioneered in Lund some 40 years ago using fetal dopamine cells.
“We hope this will be the beginning of an exciting new programme that may ultimately benefit the wider Parkinson’s community.”
Multiple Sclerosis: Blood marker tracks ‘hidden’ progression in MS
Scientists in Switzerland have discovered a blood marker that could help track the progression of MS and monitor treatment responses, even in patients who are not experiencing relapses.
The team at Basel University has revealed that elevated levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein, or GFAP, were associated with the risk of disability progression.
GFAP is a protein released by astrocytes, specialised support cells in the brain, when they become activated or injured.
MS is best known for causing relapses, sudden flare-ups of symptoms followed by periods of recovery.
But in some patients, physical and cognitive abilities continue to gradually decline even in the absence of relapses.
Experts refer to this as progression independent of relapse activity (PIRA). This process develops slowly and is difficult to detect and quantify.
Until now, clinicians have only been able to measure a biomarker called neurofilament light chain (NfL). This mainly reflects neuroaxonal damage caused by acute inflammatory disease activity.
But NfL does not appear to capture the progressive component of the disease.
"One of the key questions for us was whether progression leaves a different biological fingerprint than inflammation," said Professor Jens Kuhle from the University of Basel and the Research Center for Clinical Neuroimmunology and Neuroscience (RC2NB).
"If these processes are biologically distinct, we also need biomarkers that reflect different aspects of the disease rather than expecting a single marker to capture everything."
To investigate this question, researchers analysed more than 18,000 blood samples and clinical data from more than 2,300 people with MS in Switzerland and the US.
Writing in the journal, JAMA Neurology, the team reported that while NfL reflected inflammatory disease activity and was associated with the risk of relapses, elevated levels of GFAP were associated with the risk of disability progression in the short and long term.
Researchers say that, together, the two biomarkers could offer a more complete picture of the disease.
The researchers also found that patients whose GFAP levels declined after starting a treatment designed to slow the course of MS had a lower risk of future disability progression.
Repeated measurements of the biomarker could therefore help monitor disease progression and treatment response over time.
Stroke: Widening inequalities in stroke identified in 30-year research
The prevalence of stroke risk factors is higher and increasing at a faster rate among black African and Caribbean groups, compared to their white counterparts, a study has found.
The research, led by King’s College London, analysed data from more than 8,500 adults over 30 years as part of the South London Stroke Register – one of the longest-running population-based stroke registers in the world.
It found that 12% of strokes in participants with black African backgrounds occurred without prior risk factor diagnosis, compared to 6% in white participants.
Diabetes was around twice as common in black Caribbean and black African participants compared to white participants.
Hypertension was 29% more prevalent in black Caribbean and 47% more prevalent in black African compared to white participants.
While diabetes rates increased for all ethnic groups over the 30-year study period, they increased most rapidly among black African participants, rising from 21% in 1995–2004 to 41% in 2015–2024.
The data also showed socioeconomic differences among participants.
The prevalence of diabetes was 23% higher in participants with routine or manual occupations, such as bus drivers, security guards and plumbers, compared with those in non-routine or non-manual occupations, such as teachers and nurses, and 21% higher in those with lower education levels.
Lead author Dr Eva Emmett, Research Fellow at King’s College London, said: "These findings call for targeted and earlier primary prevention efforts.
“NHS Health Checks, which screen for hypertension and diabetes, begin at the age of 40. However, this may be too late for higher-risk groups who often experience stroke at a younger age.
“There needs to be both universal improvements in cardiovascular risk detection and more targeted prevention strategies – such as younger screening age for those most at risk – to reduce widening inequalities in stroke incidence and improve long-term health outcomes.”
The South London Stroke Register recruited participants from Southwark and Lambeth in South London, two of London’s most diverse boroughs.