2022 has been an eventful year when it comes to medical research, but what are some of the most intriguing findings and trends? Our editors, Maria Cohut, Yasemin Nicola Sakay, and James McIntosh reflect on this year’s highlights in our December “In Conversation” episode.While 2020 and 2021 may have stuck in the collective memory as two intense pandemic years, 2022 has also been an eventful one.
Google’s Year in Search report pinpoints some of people’s most pressing concerns at a global scale throughout 2022. One of these is the monkeypox epidemic, which the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a “public health emergency of international concernTrusted Source” in August.
The death of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain in September, after a record 70-year reign, garnered global interest, as did the impact of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
And the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States sparked concern among medical communities worldwide.
This year has been a very charged one for dementia research. As many as 55 millionTrusted Source people around the world live with a form of dementia, the most common form of which is Alzheimer’s disease.
While there are some treatments that target symptoms of dementia, such as memory loss and anxiety, there is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative conditions.
One thing that would help researchers find better treatments to prevent or slow down the progression of dementia symptoms would be finding out its true cause and the mechanisms that drive it.
The ‘amyloid hypothesis’ controversy
In 2006, a study that appeared in the journal NatureTrusted Source lent credibility to what is now known as the “amyloid hypothesis,” which holds that an overaccumulation of beta-amyloid protein in the brain — forming sticky amyloid plaques — disrupts the communication between neurons, thus being largely responsible for the main symptoms of dementia, such as memory and thinking problems.
Since its publication, the Nature paper has been cited in over 2,200Trusted Source other studies, and the amyloid hypothesis has informed the vast majority of the dementia research conducted until now.
Yet in July 2022, an assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University called into question claimed that some of the images in the seminal study had been manipulated, which may affect the credibility of the amyloid theory.
While the 2006 Nature paper has not, at the time of writing, been retracted, the recent claims of scientific misconduct have caused an uproar among dementia experts, and given rise to many questions.
One question is: If the paper truly does build on inaccuracies, will this invalidate some of the findings in dementia research reported until now? Not so, some experts say.
Speaking to Medical News Today, Dr. Sara Imarisio, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, explained that “the findings from the [Nature] paper were very specific and, contrary to some reports, have not significantly affected the progress or direction of research into Alzheimer’s.”
Indeed, some findings about amyloid plaques seem to hold true, as a recently developed drug, lecanemab, which attacks the accumulation of beta-amyloid in the brain, has shown clear promise in recent clinical trials, and its developers hope that the drug will be approved for use in people aged 65 years and older in the U.S. as soon as next year.
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