Medical experts have been working hard to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Recently, scientists at the University of California San Diego have found a way that might help.
They have used stem cells – which are special cells that can change into other types of cells – to treat the disease in mice.
This type of treatment has been used for other diseases like cancer and blood problems. Now, it might also work for Alzheimer’s.
What the Researchers Did In their experiment, they gave healthy stem cells to mice that had Alzheimer’s. These mice did much better than mice that did not get the stem cells.
Their brains were healthier, they remembered things better, and they acted more like normal mice.
How did this work? The brain has some immune cells called microglia. These cells can cause problems when they don’t work right. In Alzheimer’s, they cause inflammation and can’t get rid of harmful plaques.
But when the mice were given the healthy stem cells, new microglia grew. These new cells did their job properly, and the mice’s brains got healthier.
In another part of their study, the team looked at the genes in the mice’s brains. Genes control how our bodies work.
The mice that got the stem cells had better working genes in their brains than the mice that did not get the stem cells.
However, when they tried using stem cells from mice that already had Alzheimer’s, it didn’t help. This means that the cells from the sick mice still had problems.
Looking Ahead The team’s findings are very exciting. But there’s more work to be done. They want to understand better how the stem cells made such a big difference.
They also want to see if this can help people with Alzheimer’s, not just mice.
Alzheimer’s is a tough disease that affects many people and their families. Right now, we don’t have a way to cure it. But this new way of using stem cells brings hope.
Dr. Cherqui, one of the scientists, said, “We are excited to see such promising results. We hope to create a new way to treat this terrible disease.”
Many experts helped with this study, including Alexander Silva, Jay Sharma, Jacqueline Nguyen, Donald P. Pizzo, and Debashis Sahoo from UC San Diego, and Denise Hinz from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology.
If you care about Alzheimer’s, please read studies about Vitamin D deficiency linked to Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, and Oral cannabis extract may help reduce Alzheimer’s symptoms.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about Vitamin B9 deficiency linked to higher dementia risk, and results showing flavonoid-rich foods could improve survival in Parkinson’s.
The study was published in Cell Reports.
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