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On this episode of "Behind the Blue," Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Director Linda Van Eldik joins UK Public Relations and Strategic Communications' Hillary Smith to discuss the larger game plan of finding a cure for Alzheimer’s and dementia.

A multi-disciplinary collaboration led by Dr. Peter Sawaya from the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging are in the process of producing a series of videos, aimed at primary caregivers for family members and loved ones living with dementia.

The educational film titled, Spark, delves deeper into the disease, its biology, myriad of clinical symptoms and its impact on both the person with LBD and the primary caregiver. A post-screening panel will feature doctors from the Kentucky Neuroscience Institute.

Newly published research has found familiar music can elicit an extended emotional response in patients with Alzheimer’s-type dementia. The findings from this potential new approach were featured in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Florin Despa says that a major scientific goal is to understand whether the same factors that are involved in age-related metabolic disorders such as type-2 diabetes may also play a role in the development and progression of cognitive decline and dementia.

Dr. Peter Nelson, of the University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, has spent the last 15 years in the Commonwealth helping to lead the fight against Alzheimer’s and dementia inducing brain disease.

In the sessions for both the scientific and community audience, attendees will have the opportunity to hear clinicians and researchers from UK and other institutions share current findings, trends, and latest updates on dementia and aging disorders.

Selenica says their study is the first to provide a novel pathway and identify potential therapeutic targets for TDP-43 proteinopathies – especially in Alzheimer’s disease and the newly characterized form of dementia known as LATE.

Through the group's work, they found that the therapeutic targeting of TREM2 using a TREM2-activating antibody leads to the activation of microglia, recruitment of microglia to amyloid plaques, reduced amyloid deposition, and ultimately improved cognition.

“We used to think that aging-related memory and thinking decline meant one thing: a disease called Alzheimer’s disease. Now we know that the disease we were calling Alzheimer’s disease is actually many different conditions, often in combination."