Study brings renewed hope for dementia patients

Cells used to investigate “dementia in a dish” have led scientists to a potential new treatment strategy for an inherited form of the brain disease.

Defective stem cells grown in the laboratory revealed a signalling pathway linked to frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which accounts for about half of dementia cases before the age of 60.

Treatment with a drug that suppressed the pathway, known as “Wnt”, restored the ability of neurons affected by the disease to develop normally.