Page 94 - Annual Report 2018

Course where they learned about 3D imaging, the synaptic activity and their potent anti-
business plan organization and resource
management, among others.
2. The healthy elderly brain: MRI predictors for
5.5.2. Alzheimer's Association
The Alzheimer's Association is a non-for-profit orga- Principal Investigator: Dr. Bryan Strange
nization that focuses on the care and support for
patients with Alzheimer's disease, and also funds re-
search through competitive calls for research pro-
jects on Alzheimer's disease. During the year 2018,
CIEN Foundation researchers in collaboration with
CIBERNED and the Technical University of Madrid
have received funding from the Alzheimer's Asso-
ciation through 2 research projects:
1. A multicenter, randomized, double-blind,
placebo-controlled, 4-arm, 26 week parallel-
group study to evaluate the safety, tolerability
and anti-inflammatory effect of three
oromucosal doses of Sativex® in patients with
mild cognitive impairment of Alzheimer type or
early Alzheimer dementia (Sat-CIEN-02)
Principal Investigator: Dr. Isidro Ferrer (CIBERNED) cerebral magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
During 2018 we continued with the activities of
this clinical trial, included in an open and
competitive call of the Alzheimer's Association
that was approved and financed by it to be
developed in Spain during the period of Sept-
2016 to Oct-2018.
The primary end-point of the trial is to prove the
safety and tolerability of the cannabinoids in
these patients; in addition some hints about their
potential therapeutic effect are expected and
will be useful for the design of future efficacy
studies. The selected doses in accordance with
previous experimental animal studies are low
and without psychoactive effects. The
indication of these drugs in the Alzheimer’s
disease is based on their modulatory action on
CIEN Foundation Annual Report 2018 / 94
inflammatory and neuroprotection effect.
developing MCI.
(UPM, FCIEN)
The problem addressed in this project is the
current lack of techniques to predict whether or
not a healthy elderly person will develop
Alzheimer's disease (AD). This is important, since
treatment for this progressive
neurodegenerative disorder is more likely to
succeed if it is administered as soon as possible
in the development of the disease. The funded
project investigates data from a large sample:
that of the 1,213 volunteers who are part of the
Vallecas Project (aged 70-85 years, men and
women), followed in a 5-year longitudinal study.
At each annual visit, volunteers undergo a
detailed neuropsychological and clinical
evaluation, blood tests and a complete
protocol. During follow-up, some volunteers
move from a cognitively healthy state to a state
of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The
objective of the project is to retrospectively
identify biomarkers in healthy individuals who
predict the subsequent development of DCL. In
contrast to the extensive research effort to
determine MRI parameters as a prediction of
the conversion of MCI into AD, much less is
known about specific brain biomarkers that
predict the previous step: moving from healthy
to MCI. The novelty of this proposal, and the
significant progress, is to identify the changes in
the brain present in healthy elderly groups that
are clinically indistinguishable, and that differ
only later in the development of MCI.
Structural MRI (T1, T2 weighted), weighted