ReviewDrugs & aging2012
Does lithium prevent Alzheimer's disease?
Review in Drugs & aging, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 70 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
70 citing papers in PubMed, 172 citations in OpenAlex.
- Long-term lithium treatment reduces glucose metabolism in the cerebellum and hippocampus of nondemented older adults: an [¹⁸F]FDG-PET study.ACS chemical neuroscience · 2014Trial
- Association of Lithium Exposure With Alzheimer's Disease: A Propensity Score-Matched Cohort Study.Cureus · 2026Article
- The Fragile Balance: Autophagy's Role in Neurodegenerative Disease Progression.Current neuropharmacology · 2026Review
- Uncovering Thyroid Vulnerability to Doxorubicin: Integrative Cellular and in vivo Evidence of Mitochondrial Dysfunction.Drug design, development and therapy · 2026Article
- Lithium salts alter the size and morphology of the Madagascar hissing cockroach's neuroendocrine system.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Autophagy and Cellular Senescence in Alzheimer's Disease: Key Drivers of Neurodegeneration.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2025Review
- Thioctic acid shield against lipopolysaccharide depression and endoplasmic reticulum stress: GR7M/Homer/ATF6 signaling.Future science OA · 2024Article
- Review
- The Effect of Neuropsychiatric Drugs on the Oxidation-Reduction Balance in Therapy.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Molecular Role of Protein Phosphatases in Alzheimer's and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases.Biomedicines · 2024Review
- New Advances in the Pharmacology and Toxicology of Lithium: A Neurobiologically Oriented Overview.Pharmacological reviews · 2024Review
- A Relationship between the Structures and Neurotoxic Effects of Aβ Oligomers Stabilized by Different Metal Ions.ACS chemical neuroscience · 2024Article
- The Multifaceted Role of WNT Signaling in Alzheimer's Disease Onset and Age-Related Progression.Cells · 2023Review
- Lithium Prevents Telomere Shortening in Cortical Neurons in Amyloid-Beta Induced Toxicity.NeuroSci · 2023Article
- Transcription factor EB as a key molecular factor in human health and its implication in diseases.SAGE open medicine · 2023Review
- Molecular mechanisms and therapeutic effects of different vitamins and minerals in COVID-19 patients.Journal of trace elements in medicine and biology : organ of the Society for Minerals and Trace Elements (GMS) · 2022Review
- Transcription factor EB-mediated mesenchymal stem cell therapy induces autophagy and alleviates spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 defects in neuronal cells model.Cell death & disease · 2022Article
- The Effect of Lithium on the Budding YeastMicroorganisms · 2022Article
- Association between lithium use and the incidence of dementia and its subtypes: A retrospective cohort study.PLoS medicine · 2022Article
- Combined targeting of pathways regulating synaptic formation and autophagy attenuates Alzheimer's disease pathology in mice.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Article
10 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Lithium salts have a well-established role in the treatment of major affective disorders. More recently, experimental and clinical studies have provided evidence that lithium may also exert neuroprotective effects. In animal and cell culture models, lithium has been shown to increase neuronal viability through a combination of mechanisms that includes the inhibition of apoptosis, regulation of autophagy, increased mitochondrial function, and synthesis of neurotrophic factors. In humans, lithium treatment has been associated with humoral and structural evidence of neuroprotection, such as increased expression of anti-apoptotic genes, inhibition of cellular oxidative stress, synthesis of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), cortical thickening, increased grey matter density, and hippocampal enlargement. Recent studies addressing the inhibition of glycogen synthase kinase-3 beta (GSK3B) by lithium have further suggested the modification of biological cascades that pertain to the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). A recent placebo-controlled clinical trial in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) showed that long-term lithium treatment may actually slow the progression of cognitive and functional deficits, and also attenuate Tau hyperphosphorylation in the MCI-AD continuum. Therefore, lithium treatment may yield disease-modifying effects in AD, both by the specific modification of its pathophysiology via inhibition of overactive GSK3B, and by the unspecific provision of neurotrophic and neuroprotective support. Although the clinical evidence available so far is promising, further experimentation and replication of the evidence in large scale clinical trials is still required to assess the benefit of lithium in the treatment or prevention of cognitive decline in the elderly.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.