June 2021

Our moon shot to curing coma will take everyone. We all need to work together toward the grand challenge of awakening hope.

Luca Giliberto, MD, PhD, and Cristina d’Abramo, PhD, share more than a marriage: After years of research, their combined efforts to develop a passive immunotherapy for Alzheimer disease have earned them a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

After showing early success, zavegepant eyes a pivotal phase 2/3 trial with potential regulatory submission around the corner.

With new formulations of effective seizure rescue medications available, epilepsy specialists have begun to refine the approach and education to treating these emergency situations.

Two experts in pediatric MS care, Lauren B. Krupp, MD, and Tanuja Chitnis, MD, offer tips and insight on the diagnosis of the disease and the specific challenges faced by patients stemming from their own clinical experience.

ALS has only recently been associated with causative or disease-modifying mutations in 20 genes that encode proteins with diverse functions, with promising therapeutic targets including proteins in pathways that regulate protein homeostasis.

All agree that having a simple, standardized serum biomarker to measure disease activity would offer the greatest utility in treating a medical condition such as MS, which now has a variety of graded therapies available.

Despite a few surprising program failures early this year, there is plenty of potential worth holding on to in the Huntington disease pipeline.

Experts in the treatment and management of patients with Alzheimer disease and dementia, including Marwan Sabbagh, MD; Lon Schneider, MD, MS; Anton Porsteinsson, MD; and Robert Howard, MD, MRCPsych, weigh in on the FDA's controversial approval of Biogen's anti-amyloid drug, aducanumab.

The FDA has approved Biogen’s disease-modifying, anti-amyloid agent aducanumab after a tumultuous regulatory journey.

The Epilepsy Digital Experience Navigator, or EDEN, platform, is being developed in tandem with Embleema, with an aim of improving data use and collection for individuals with epilepsy.

Findings on multiple cognitive end points and biomarkers support lecanemab’s therapeutic concept for the targeting of specific oligomeric species in the process of pathophysiological amyloid generation in Alzheimer disease.

In preclinical data, VY-HTT01 showed a robust and durable reduction of huntingtin mRNA and protein while distributed across core areas of Huntington disease pathology.

After in-clinic therapy, participants in the Paired VNS group showed a 5.0-point improvement in the Upper Extremity Fugl-Meyer Assessment compared to 2.4 points in controls.

Patients with a previous history of cardiovascular risks experienced similarly low number of cardiovascular events with treatment of fremanezumab compared with placebo.

The 2021 AAN Meeting Hot Topics plenary focused on neurological facets of COVID-19, and featured insight from Anthony Fauci, MD, of NIAID, and Walter Koroshetz, MD, of NINDS, among others.

Results from the ongoing clinical trial will help define clinical management guidelines for switching patients with relapsing MS on other disease-modifying therapies to siponimod.

Serious adverse events occurred in 3.7% and 2.4% of subjects in the subgroups of patients with 1 and 2 or more triptan failures, respectively.

The study presented at the 2021 AAN Meeting follows the complete response letter issued by the FDA to Acadia Pharmaceuticals due to deficiencies in their sNDA.