Prescribing New Alzheimer’s Drug; Treating Guillain-Barre; Menopause and the Brain

Will you prescribe aducanumab (Aduhelm) for your Alzheimer’s patients? For many physicians, the answer is a qualified yes — largely because there’s nothing else to offer. (Fierce Pharma)

Three FDA advisers resigned from the committee that counseled the agency on aducanumab: “This might be the worst approval decision that the FDA has made that I can remember,” said one. (New York Times)

The Alzheimer’s Association, a strong advocate for aducanumab’s FDA approval, said the drug’s $56,000 price tag is “simply unacceptable” and poses “an insurmountable barrier to access.”

Should mild Guillain-Barré syndrome be treated? (Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry)

Hospitalized patients who died with a diagnosis of COVID-19 had more skeletal muscle inflammation than those who died of other illnesses, an autopsy study showed. (JAMA Neurology)

Network medicine linked SARS-CoV-2 infection to brain microvascular injury and neuroinflammation in pathways and processes implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. (Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy)

COVID-19 and pandemic politics created an environment that made it challenging for community neurologists to provide care, a qualitative study found. (Neurology)

The FDA rejected Verily’s bid to add Parkinson’s motor symptoms to its clinical research smartwatch.

AbbVie’s Forest Laboratories will face an antitrust trial over patents for its Alzheimer’s drug memantine (Namenda). (Fierce Pharma)

Chronic white matter inflammation was associated with increased levels of serum neurofilament light chain and disease severity in non-acute multiple sclerosis patients. (Neurology)

Suppressing cyclophilin A in mice that carried the APOE4 gene led to improved blood-brain barrier integrity and prevented further neuron loss and behavioral deficits. (Nature Aging)

Menopause had pronounced effects on brain structure, connectivity, energy metabolism, and amyloid-beta deposition, a neuroimaging study showed. (Scientific Reports)

Standardized clinical data reporting of seizures helped identify patterns in pediatric epilepsy patients. (Epilepsia)