Targeting Blood Vessels to Improve Treatment for Alzheimer Disease: Costantino Iadecola, MD

WATCH TIME: 6 minutes

"The appeal that we make is to consider vascular health as an integral part to curb down neurodegenerative pathologies, which seems to be the major cause of cognitive impairment in the elderly. To prevent and to treat, we also need to keep in mind that vascular health is crucial."

The maintenance of healthy blood vessels in the brain is important not only for keeping neurons alive but also for the removal of accumulated proteins that cause neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease (AD). Recently, research has highlighted vascular health as an integral part of treating and preventing cognitive impairment in the elder population who are more prone to AD. Although with emerging treatments such as amyloid-beta (aß) immunotherapy, the effectiveness of treatments can be limited by vascular health problems.

Costantino Iadecola, MD, will give a talk in one of the plenary sessions on advances in neurology about brain health on the last day of the 2023 American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting, April 22-27, in Boston, Massachusetts. He plans to present evidence of the causes of brain damage, including cognitive impairment in neurogenerative diseases such as AD and the potential approaches to prevent threats to the brain.

Prior to the meeting, Iadecola, the Ann Parish Titzell professor of neuroscience and director of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine, recently sat down with NeurologyLive® in an interview to discuss the importance of considering the health of blood vessels in the brain in regard to neurodegenerative disease. He also talked about the amyloid-related imaging abnormalities syndrome and how it relates to AD treatment. Additionally, Iadecola spoke about the process of when treatment for AD moves from the clinical trial phase to the clinical community.

Click here for more coverage on 2023 AAN.