Science And Tech News

Old seizure medicine shows potential to prevent Alzheimer's decades before symptoms

Northwestern University researchers report that levetiracetam, a long-used anti-seizure drug, may prevent Alzheimer’s by blocking the production of amyloid-beta 42, the protein linked to plaques, with results seen in animal models and cultured human neurons (and post-mortem Down syndrome brain tissue). If taken decades before symptoms, it could theoretically slow or prevent disease, though there are no human trials yet and the evidence is observational; researchers caution that the drug would need to start very early and are pursuing longer-lasting formulations and trials, including in genetic forms of Alzheimer’s.