Mohamed Salama

• Doctor of Medicine
• Professor (Full) at American University in Cairo

Background The apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene, encompassing three alleles (ε2, ε3, ε4), is a critical player in lipid metabolism and has been extensively studied for its role in neurodegenerative diseases. This study examines APOE genetic variability and its association with PD in an Egyptian cohort. Methods A total of 891 participants, including 42...

Dementia is rising sharply in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), with cases projected to increase by 367% by 2050. Despite this, research remains fragmented, with limited large-scale studies and methodological inconsistencies. This review synthesizes current knowledge on dementia prevalence, risk factors, and healthcare challenges in M...

Narcolepsy is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder defined by the selective loss of orexin-producing neurons in the lateral hy-pothalamus, leading to excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy. While pharmacological therapies have evolved to mitigate symptoms, they fail to address the core pathology-orexin deficiency. This narrative review examines...

LRRK2 -PD represents the most common form of autosomal dominant Parkinson’s disease. We identified the LRRK2 p.L1795F variant in three families and six additional unrelated cases using genetic data from over 50,000 individuals. Carriers with available genotyping data shared a common haplotype. The clinical presentation resembles other LRRK2 -PD for...

Question The Green Brain Capital Model emphasises the bidirectional relationship between brain health and the environment, making it an environmentally focused type of brain capital. This work represents the initial stage of conceptualising the Green Brain Capital Model, which is essential to avoid ambiguity and misinterpretation while developing a...

INTRODUCTION The increased interest in evidence‐based medicine has led to the emergence of disease registries worldwide to help tackle the impact of chronic diseases. A national dementia registry in Egypt would provide a valuable source of patient data that will significantly advance the disease management strategies, quality of patient care, and i...

Dementia is growing worldwide and has been considered a priority for public health by the World Health Organization. The increased number of people with dementia influenced the emergence of a wave of stigma directed at people with dementia. A diagnosis of dementia often leads to a stereotyping attitude or stigma denoting people living with dementia...

Parkinson’s disease (PD), the most common motor neurodegenerative disorder, lacks a reliable biomarker for early detection. Elevated dopa decarboxylase (DDC) levels showpromise as a biomarker for PD, distinguishing it from other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This perspective explores DDC’s regulatory mechanisms, its...

Background The growth of social media and the continuous improvement of machine‐learning algorithms suggest that social media‐based screening methods for mental diseases will become increasingly feasible with high accuracy in the next few years. Additionally, Artificial Intelligence, particularly predictive machine learning (ML) Models, has been es...

The AL-SEHA (A Longitudinal Study of Egyptian Healthy Aging) pilot study is an HRS-Around the World (ATW) longitudinal sister study in Egypt. This foundational phase aims to uncover critical insights into cognitive impairment, the prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and the pivotal role of family support for older adults in Egypt. The c...

This study addresses the urgent need for culturally sensitive cognitive assessments in Egypt by validating an adapted version of Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) to the Egyptian context. This version is to be used as a part of the Egyptian Aging Survey (AL-SEHA). We enrolled 300 participants aged 55 + from diverse backgrounds and met...

Essential tremor (ET) is one of the most common neurological disorders. However, there’s no definite ET biomarker and the diagnosis depends on its clinical presentation. Therefore, ET can be easily misdiagnosed with other diseases especially parkinson’s disease (PD). PD, being one of a group of neurodegenerative diseases calked synucleinopathies, c...

The impact of LRRK2 variants on the risk of Parkinson’s disease in Egyptians remains unknown. We examined 1210 Egyptians (611 PD patients and 599 controls) from 16 governorates across Egypt for 12 LRRK2 pathogenic variants. The p.Gly2019Ser was the only variant detected, with a prevalence of 4.1% in sporadic cases, 6.5% in familial cases, and 0.68%...

Phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitors are primarily used in the treatment of erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension, but have also been reported to have a potential therapeutic effect for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This is likely to be through stimulation of nitric oxide (NO)/cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) signaling...

Optimal brain health is essential to smoothing major global skill-intensive economic transitions, such as the bioeconomy, green, care economy and digital transitions. Good brain health is vital to socio-economic sustainability, productivity and well-being. The care transition focuses on recognizing and investing in care services and care work as es...

Background Recently, the countries in the Mediterranean basin (which share cultural ties) have been showing a common trend of declining social support for the elderly, with deficiencies in social care models for this demographic. Thus, this Delphi panel study analyzed the gaps in social and integrated care among the participating countries in a Eur...

The social stigma and negative perceptions about Dementia are major problems that hinder disease management. Yet, the scarcity of resources that investigate the situation in Egypt limits our understanding of the role of stigma and its implications on the disease in the country. In this study, we explored the perceptions of Dementia in Egypt by inve...

There is no definite biomarker for confirming the diagnosis of essential tremor (ET) or differentiating it from other diseases, particularly Parkinson's disease. The present study aimed to investigate the serum levels of the α-synuclein protein (α-syn) and its autoantibodies in patients with ET compared with healthy controls and its relation to mot...

The impact of LRRK2 variants on the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) in Egyptians remains unknown. We examined 1,210 Egyptians (611 PD patients and 599 controls) for 12 LRRK2 mutations. The p.Gly2019Ser was the only variant detected across Egypt, with a prevalence of 4.1% in sporadic cases, 6.5% in familial cases, and 0.68% in controls. Among p.Gly...

Background and objective: The symptoms of most neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease (PD), usually do not occur until substantial neuronal loss occurs. This makes the process of early diagnosis very challenging. Hence, this research used variant call format (VCF) analysis to detect variants and novel genes that could be used as...

The uncertainty that marks adolescence and early adulthood is heightened by the simultaneous crises of mental health, education and youth unemployment. This puts the brain capital of young people under threat. We must invest in youth brain health and skills that are orientated towards environmental sustainability. This can train future creatives to...

Basic Science is crucial for the advancement of clinical care for Movement Disorders. Here, we provide brief updates on how basic science is important for understanding disease mechanisms, disease prevention, disease diagnosis, development of novel therapies and to establish the basis for personalized medicine. We conclude the viewpoint by a call t...

Background and objective: Symptoms of most neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease (PD), usually do not occur until substantial neuronal loss occurs. This makes the process of early diagnosis very challenging. Hence, this research used variant call format (VCF) analysis to detect variants and novel genes that could be used as prog...

Introduction: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most common motor neurodegenerative disease worldwide. Given the complexity of PD etiology and the different metabolic derangements correlated to the disease, metabolomics profiling of patients is a helpful tool to identify patho-mechanistic pathways for the disease development. Dopamine metabolism has...

As the global population ages, the prevalence of cognitive impairment among older individuals has been steadily rising. Like many countries, Egypt is grappling with the challenges an aging demographic poses. The global network of longitudinal aging studies, modeled after the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS), includes over 40 countries but lacks...

Alzheimer’s and Parkinson's disease are the most common neurodegenerative diseases. In the current study, we explored the potential of blood-based markers to differentiate Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) from healthy controls using ELISA assays via measuring the serum level of α-Syn and panels of inflammatory cytokines in the...

Micro-RNAs, a class of small non-coding RNA molecules, play a significant role in the intricate complex mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease (PD). PD is a common neurodegenerative condition that leads to significant morbidity and a decline in quality of life. Nevertheless, the development of PD is influenced by environme...

Background Major depressive disorder (MDD) has been recognized as a global public health concern affecting the lives of 264 million people with increasing prevalence worldwide. Inspired by the exposomic research, this study aims to investigate the dynamic and complex interplay between different demographic, lifestyle, environmental factors and bimo...

Although over 90 independent risk variants have been identified for Parkinson’s disease using genome-wide association studies, most studies have been performed in just one population at a time. Here we performed a large-scale multi-ancestry meta-analysis of Parkinson’s disease with 49,049 cases, 18,785 proxy cases and 2,458,063 controls including i...

Paraquat (PQ), rotenone (RO), and 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) are neurotoxicants that can damage human health. Exposure to these neurotoxicants has been linked to neurodegeneration, particularly Parkinson’s disease. However, their mechanisms of action have not been fully elucidated, nor has the relative vulnerability of neur...

As the global population ages, the prevalence of cognitive impairment among older individuals has been steadily rising. Egypt, like many countries, is grappling with the challenges posed by an aging demographic. Cognitive impairment not only affects the quality of life of older adults but also imposes significant burdens on healthcare systems and s...

The Monogenic Network of the Global Parkinson's Genetics Program (GP2) aims to create an efficient infrastructure to accelerate the identification of novel genetic causes of Parkinson's disease (PD) and to improve our understanding of already identified genetic causes, such as reduced penetrance and variable clinical expressivity of known disease-c...

The Global Parkinson’s Genetics Program (GP2) will genotype over 150,000 participants from around the world, and integrate genetic and clinical data for use in large-scale analyses to dramatically expand our understanding of the genetic architecture of PD. This report details the workflow for cohort integration into the complex arm of GP2, and toge...

Population aging is a global challenge that poses particular difficulties for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). So far, there is a dearth of data that describe how aging affects Arab LMICs, which have distinct family structures, caregiving traditions, medical challenges and exposure to climate change. The planned Longitudinal Study of Egypt...

Background: An understanding of the genetic mechanisms underlying diseases in ancestrally diverse populations is an important step towards development of targeted treatments. Research in African and African admixed populations can enable mapping of complex traits, because of their genetic diversity, extensive population substructure, and distinct...

Background: Social support is essential in the daily activities of the older population, which can impact their cognitive functions over time. Aim of the study: This study investigates the hypothesis that there is a link between social support and cognitive function in the older population living in the Egyptian community using the Arabic translati...

Background Validated self-reporting tools are required to evaluate the functional outcome and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) for those who had extremity bone sarcomas in their childhood or adolescence. Our study pursued cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the pediatric Toronto Extremity Salvage Score (pTESS) and Toronto Extremity Sa...

The biological basis of the neurodegenerative movement disorder, Parkinson’s disease (PD), is still unclear despite it being ‘discovered’ over 200 years ago in Western Medicine. Based on current PD knowledge, there are widely varying theories as to its pathobiology. The aim of this article was to explore some of these different theories by summariz...

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) has become a global public health challenge as disability and death due to the disease are growing rapidly in comparison to other neurological disorders. There are no up-to-date comprehensive reviews on the epidemiology, environmental and genetic risk factors, phenotypic characterization, and patient-reported ou...

Parkinson’s disease is a debilitating multisystemic disorder affecting both the central and peripheral nervous systems. Accumulating evidence suggests a potential interaction between gut microbiota and the pathophysiology of the disease. As a result of the degradation of dopaminergic neurons, PD patients develop motor impairments such as tremors, r...

Given the many challenges facing healthcare access in many developing countries and the added limitations observed in emergencies like COVID-19 pandemic, the authors here discuss an alternative and feasible approach to overcome all these limitations.

Background Social support is essential in the daily activities of the elderly, which can impact their cognitive functions over time. Aim of the study This study investigates the hypothesis that there is a link between social support and cognitive function in the elderly living in the Egyptian community using the Arabic translation of the Survey of...

Purpose Our study pursued cross-cultural adaptation, and validation of the pediatric Toronto Extremity Salvage Score (pTESS) and Toronto Extremity Salvage Score (TESS) to assess the functional outcome for Egyptian children and adult survivors of childhood bone cancer. Mental domains were added to allow the evaluation of health-related quality of li...

Improvements in sequencing technology coupled with dramatic declines in the cost of genome sequencing have led to a proportional growth in the size and number of genetic datasets since the release of the human genetic sequence by The Human Genome Project (HGP) international consortium. The HGP was undeniably a significant scientific success, a turn...

Finding a link between a hormone and microRNAs (miRNAs) is of great importance since it enables the adjustment of genetic composition or cellular functions without needing gene-level interventions. The dicer-mediated cleavage of precursor miRNAs is an interface link between miRNA and its regulators; any disruption in this process can affect neuroge...

Introduction Falling is a major health problem among old age persons and are the sixth cause of mortality and morbidity among them. Assessing the prevalence of falls among elderly in an Egyptian community and investigating its associated risk factors using the Arabic translation of the SHARE-Questionnaire. Subjects and methods This cross-sectional...

Background: Human genetics research lacks diversity; over 80% of genome-wide association studies have been conducted on individuals of European ancestry. In addition to limiting insights regarding disease mechanisms, disproportionate representation can create disparities preventing equitable implementation of personalized medicine. Objective: Th...

Background: At a population level, some portion of dementia may be preventable by intervening at different times in the life course. Little is known about the burden and distribution of established and emerging dementia risk factors in countries in Africa. The lack of readily available information impedes research and policy efforts to design and i...

Disease registries have emerged worldwide to help tackle the impact of chronic diseases by providing accurate data on several aspects of the disease care process. Age‐associated diseases, particularly dementia, are growing worldwide with several implications and increased economic burden, especially in lower‐income countries. In Egypt, there is a l...

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) susceptibility has a strong genetic component. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) across trans-ancestral populations show both common and distinct genetic variants of susceptibility across European and Asian ancestries, while many other ethnic populations remain underexplored. We conducted the first SLE GWAS o...

Leigh syndrome (LS) is one of the most puzzling mitochondrial disorders, which is also known as subacute necrotizing encephalopathy. It has an incidence of 1 in 77,000 live births worldwide with poor prognosis. Currently, there is a poor understanding of the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms of the disease without any available effective tre...

Tauopathy is a pathological hallmark of many neurodegenerative diseases. It is characterized by abnormal aggregates of pathological phosphotau and somatodendritic redistribution. One suggested strategy for treating tauopathy is to stimulate autophagy, hence, getting rid of these pathological protein aggregates. One key controller of autophagy is mT...

Glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) is associated with the proinflammatory phenotype of microglia and has been shown to act in concert with nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB). GSK3 is also a suppressor of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), the principal regulator of redox homeostasis. Agreeing with the oxidative paradigm of aging, Nrf2 i...

Further studies are required to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Parkinson’s disease (PD) progression. This study investigated the motor and non-motor progression of people with PD (PWP) at 6 months during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with that during the pre-pandemic period. Patients were recruited from Ain Shams University Hos...

Background and objective Tauopathy is a group of neurodegenerative diseases in which the pathogenesis processes are related to tau protein. The imbalances between the activities of kinases and phosphatases of tau protein lead to tau hyperphosphorylation and subsequent neurodegeneration. Numerous studies suggest a strong linkage between type 2 diabe...

Acute or chronic exposures to pesticides have been linked to neurotoxicity and the potential development of neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs). This study aimed to consider the neurotoxicity of three widely utilized pesticides: malathion, chlorpyrifos, and paraquat within the hippocampus (HC), corpus striatum (CS), cerebellum (CER), and cerebral cor...

Background Clinical progression of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is highly heterogeneous, and its predictors are generally lacking. Identifying predictors of early disease progression is important for patients’ management and follow-up. The current study aims to identify clinical, neuroimaging and biochemical baseline predictors of motor progression in...

To help address the increasing challenges related to the provision of dementia care, dementia registries have emerged around the world as important tools to gain insights and a better understanding of the disease process. Dementia registries provide a valuable source of standardized data collected from a large number of patients. This review explor...

This book highlights the effect of complex interactions between numerous genetic and environmental factors, including food intake, physical activity, age, and stress on brain physiology and function. It further discusses the mechanistic connection between nutrition and aging towards understanding the effect of the brain on longevity. The book also...

Dementia is a condition in which memory, perception, behavior, and the capacity to do normal tasks deteriorate. While dementia affects the elderly predominantly, it is not a common aspect of aging. Around 50 million people have dementia globally, with almost 60% residing in low- and middle-income countries, and almost 10 million new cases are repor...

Nutrigenomics is one aspect of the interaction between environment and genes. The term exceeds the conventional understanding of the genes affecting body reaction to diet into more holistic approach, taking into consideration the complexity of exposure factors as well as intrinsic responses. So, although the diet type plays an important role, the e...

Human genetics research lacks diversity; over 80% of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been conducted on individuals of European ancestry. In addition to limiting insights regarding disease mechanisms, disproportionate representation can create disparities preventing equitable implementation of personalized medicine. This systematic revie...

Microglia are the resident immune cells of the brain and play a crucial role in housekeeping and maintaining homeostasis of the brain microenvironment. Upon injury or disease, microglial cells become activated, at least partly, via signals initiated by injured neurons. Activated microglia, thereby, contribute to both neuroprotection and neuroinflam...

Tauopathy is a term that has been used to represent a pathological condition in which hyperphosphorylated tau protein aggregates in neurons and glia which results in neurodegeneration, synapse loss and dysfunction and cognitive impairments. Recently, drug repositioning strategy (DRS) becomes a promising field and an alternative approach to advancin...

Sporadic neurodegenerative diseases comprise a majority of cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (sALS), Parkinson disease (sPD), and Alzheimer disease (sAD), the causes of which are presumably environmental factors acting alone or in concert with genetic susceptibilities. Identification of culpable exogenous agents is challenging because years/de...

Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the most common progressive neurodegenerative diseases. It is characterized neuropathologically by the presence of alpha-synuclein containing Lewy Bodies in the substantia nigra of the brain with loss of dopaminergic neurons in the pars compacta of the substantia nigra. The presence of alpha-synuclein aggregates i...

Genetic modification (GM) of crops is a technique that involves the transfer of a genetic material from one organism, including plants, animals, or microorganisms, into a different organism, modifying the plants’ characteristics. The technology provides different approaches towards agricultural improvements (environmental, nutritional, yield increa...

During pandemics, the ethicists, public health professionals, and human rights advocates raise a red flag about different public health actions that should, at best, be addressed through integrated, global policies. How to rationalize the healthcare resources and prioritize the cases is not a recent challenge but the serious concern about that is h...

The virus responsible for the COVID-19 global health crisis, SARS-CoV-2, has been shown to utilize the ACE2 protein as an entry point to its target cells. The virus has been shown to rely on the actions of TMPRSS2 (a serine protease), as well as FURIN (a peptidase), for the critical priming of its spike protein. It has been postulated that variatio...

Pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration (PKAN) is a rare hereditary neurodegenerative disease characterized by an accumulation of iron within the brain. In the present report, we describe a family with 4 affected siblings presenting with variable clinical manifestations, e.g., parkinsonian features, dystonia and slow disease progression ov...

Introduction This study aimed to determine associations between health warning label content and motivation to quit waterpipe smoking by gender and smoking location. Methods Convenience samples of university students in three Eastern Mediterranean countries – Egypt (n=442), Jordan (n=535) and Palestine (n=487) – completed an online survey assessin...

Parkinson’s disease (PD), the second most common neurodegenerative disorder, is characterized by cardinal motor impairments, including akinesia and tremor, as well as by a host of non-motor symptoms, including both autonomic and cognitive dysfunction. PD is associated with a death of nigral dopaminergic neurons, as well as the pathological spread o...