A non-synonymous genetic rare variant, rs75932628-T (p.R47H), in the TREM2 gene has recently been reported to be a strong genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD). 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Participants: 32,598
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Full text may need a subscription
Whether novel risk variants of Alzheimer's disease (AD) identified through genome-wide association studies also influence magnetic resonance imaging-based intermediate phenotypes of AD in the general population is unclear. 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Participants: 8,175
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
To test the effects of the PPAR-γ agonist pioglitazone on cognition, regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), and plasma levels of Aβ40 and Aβ42, we conducted a 6-month, randomized, open-controlled trial in patients with mild Alzheimer disease (AD) accompanied with type II diabetes mellitus. 2 key findings →
Participants: 21
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Full text may need a subscription
These findings suggest that subtle elevation of CHD risk may negatively affect memory functioning even in otherwise healthy, non-demented older women without a history of heart disease. 3 key findings →
Participants: 375
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
TREM and TREM-like receptors are a structurally similar protein family encoded by genes clustered on chromosome 6p21.11. 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
Dilation of perivascular spaces (PVS) in the brain may indicate poor fluid drainage due to the accumulation of perivascular cell debris, waste, and proteins, including amyloid-beta (Aβ). 2 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 56
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Cerebral "microvascular" disease occurs in lacunar stroke, leukoaraiosis, vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease. 3 key findings →
Participants: 1,953
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Personality traits have been associated with the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease neuropathology, including amyloid and tau. 3 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 786
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
We set out to determine factors that influence the rate of brain atrophy in 1-year longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. 1 key finding →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 363
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
Higher intake of omega-3 fatty acids (n-3 FAs) is associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and milder forms of cognitive impairment (e.g. cognitive impairment no dementia [CIND]); however, findings from interventional trials are inconsistent. 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Participants: 934
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Full text may need a subscription
Homozygous mutations in exon 2 of TREM2, a gene involved in Nasu-Hakola disease, can cause frontotemporal dementia (FTD). 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
There is evidence from a population-based study of an inverse relationship between monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) energy intake and age-related cognitive decline (ARCD), while high polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) intake was positively associated with cognitive impairment in elderly subjects. 2 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 704
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Identifying which neuropsychological measures detect early cognitive changes associated with Alzheimer disease (AD), brain pathology would be helpful clinically for the diagnosis of early AD and for the design of clinical trials. 3 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 233
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Recent studies have found an association between a variant in triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2) (rs75932628-T) and both Alzheimer's disease (AD) and cognitive function in individuals aged 80-100 years. 2 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 1,148
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
The vitamin E and donepezil trial for the treatment of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) was conducted at 69 centers in North America; 24 centers participated in an MRI sub study. 2 key findings →
Participants: 131
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
Hippocampal MRglc reductions using FDG-PET during normal aging predict cognitive decline years in advance of the clinical diagnosis. 2 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 55
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
DNA methylation is a vital component of the epigenetic machinery that orchestrates changes in multiple genes and helps regulate gene expression in all known vertebrates. 3 key findings →
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Midlife hypertension is associated with later development of cognitive impairment, vascular dementia (VsD), and possibly Alzheimer's disease (AD). 5 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Full text may need a subscription
Several studies suggested that women are at higher risk of dementia than men. 4 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 7,046
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Full text may need a subscription
White matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are commonly assumed to represent non-specific cerebrovascular disease comorbid to neurodegenerative processes, rather than playing a synergistic role. 4 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 571
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Free full text
Elevated plasma neurofilament light chain (NfL) is associated with dementia though underlying mechanisms remain unknown. 3 key findings →
Design: cross-sectional
Participants: 179
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Research of the human brain metabolism in vivo has largely focused on total glucose use (via fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography) and, until recently, did not examine the use of glucose outside oxidative phosphorylation, which is known as aerobic glycolysis (AG). 2 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 42
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Odor identification deficits occur in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and predict clinical conversion from MCI to AD. 4 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 571
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
We investigated in a population-based cohort study the association of global and lobar brain tissue volumes with specific cognitive domains and risk of dementia. 3 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 490
Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
We used MRI volume sampling with coregistered and atrophy corrected FDG-PET scans to test three hypotheses: 1) hippocampal formation measures are superior to temporal neocortical measures in the discrimination of normal (NL) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI); 2) neocortical measures are most useful in the separation of Alzheimer disease (AD) from NL or MCI; 3) measures of PET glucose metabolism (MRglu) have greater diagnostic sensitivity than MRI volume. 2 key findings →
Design: cross-sectional
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies →
Original source
Full text may need a subscription
How the 0–100 score works — and why some entries are capped
This is alzhub's own score. It is not an official metric, not an impact factor,
and no journal, publisher or ranking body endorses it. We built it so that a reader who is not a
scientist can tell a landmark trial from a conference abstract without having to already know the
difference. Every point comes from one of 20 components, all of them printed on the study itself,
so you can disagree with our arithmetic rather than having to trust the total.
- Journal tier up to 10 pts
- Journal's citation record up to 4 pts
- Study design up to 12 pts
- Strength of evidence up to 5 pts
- Peer-review validation up to 10 pts
- How recent up to 5 pts
- Sample size up to 4 pts
- Effect reported up to 3 pts
- Studied in people up to 3 pts
- Randomised / blinded up to 2 pts
- Times cited up to 7 pts
- Citations per year up to 5 pts
- Impact for its field and year up to 6 pts
- Cited by studies here up to 6 pts
- Still being cited up to 4 pts
- Senior author's track record up to 4 pts
- Institution's track record up to 3 pts
- Multi-centre collaboration up to 3 pts
- Indexed in PubMed up to 2 pts
- Free to read up to 2 pts
Journals are placed in ordered tiers, never given a numeric impact factor — we
could not verify current impact factors from a source we control, and an invented one would be
worse than none. Tier 1 is the top-tier general journals (NEJM, The Lancet, JAMA, Nature, Science,
Nature Medicine); tier 2 is the leading specialty journals; tier 3 is every other peer-reviewed
journal. A separate part scores how much the journal's own papers are cited, which tells the
tier-3 journals apart.
Two rules we don't bend. First, we never fill in a
missing value: if a record does not state a sample size or a design, that component scores
zero, and if we simply have no data for a part, such as a citation count, that part is left out and
the study is scored on the parts we could check. The study card says which. Second, anything that is not a peer-reviewed
article is capped at 16/100 and carries a warning chip — so a conference abstract or
a company press release can never outrank a peer-reviewed paper, no matter how good it looks.
We rank a rigorous null result — a good trial showing that something does not
work — above an early positive finding. Someone deciding whether to buy a supplement is served by
that, and the rigour is already counted by the design and journal components.
The score is computed from the published data alone and is
reproducible: the same file always yields the same numbers.
See the whole rubric drawn out →
— four charts covering all 27,380 studies: how the scores are spread and where the cap
bites, which of the 20 components the library is strong and weak on, which subjects rest on
stronger evidence, and what kinds of study each subject is actually built from.