Studying Treatments and Therapy for Dementia Patients

June 21, 2023

For more information, contact Ernie Ballard, ernie.ballard@pbrc.edu, 225-263-2677

BATON ROUGE – Pennington Biomedical is one of 15 sites in the country that is part of a National Institutes of Health, or NIH, funded clinical trial focused on Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. The purpose of the trial is to determine if THC decreases agitation in hospice eligible dementia patients.

THC is currently a Schedule1 drug, which means it is not currently recognized as a therapeutic treatment for any medical condition and has the potential for abuse. If successful, this study could identify a medical condition where THC is potentially therapeutic. Equally important, these efforts may also demonstrate the potential for THC to treat agitation and the sleep disturbances observed in Alzheimer's disease patients, without the numerous side effects that current treatments cause.

The research is being conducted in Pennington Biomedical's Institute for Dementia Research and Prevention, and is being led by Dr. Jeffrey Keller, the institute’s director and founder.

Along with that study, the Institute is continuing work with treatment options that have shown potential to slow or prevent the progression of Alzheimer's disease in certain subsets of the population. One of the biggest advances over the last 14 years is the use of monoclonal antibody therapies.

"Just like your body makes antibodies to fight infections and disease, we can add man-made customized antibodies that target and help remove the peptides and proteins believed to cause Alzheimer's disease. In recent studies, these monoclonal antibody therapies have shown a lot of promise in a subset of Alzheimer's disease patients," Keller said.

Between 7 and 10 percent of Alzheimer's disease cases appear to be responsive to this therapy.

"So we don't want to stop there," Keller said. "We want to develop more biologics, more monoclonal antibodies, that will potentially help treat other subtypes of Alzheimer's disease."

"One of the most exciting things about Pennington Biomedical is the diversity of the investigators," Keller says. "We have faculty who are studying things like exercise and diet, people working with the leading pharmaceutical companies, and even some of us working with the NIH to explore things like THC as potential therapies."

About the Pennington Biomedical Research Center

The Pennington Biomedical Research Center is at the forefront of medical discovery as it relates to understanding the triggers of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and dementia. The Center architected the national “Obecity, USA” awareness and advocacy campaign to help solve the obesity epidemic by 2040. The Center conducts basic, clinical, and population research, and is affiliated with LSU.

The research enterprise at Pennington Biomedical includes over 480 employees within a network of 40 clinics and research laboratories, and 13 highly specialized core service facilities. Its scientists and physician/scientists are supported by research trainees, lab technicians, nurses, dietitians, and other support personnel. Pennington Biomedical a state-of-the-art research facility on a 222-acre campus in Baton Rouge.

For more information, see www.pbrc.edu.

Pennington Biomedical Research Center
6400 Perkins Road
Baton Rouge, LA 70808