A new study from USC Stem Cell researchers offers fresh hope in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.
Instead of focusing on reducing a brain chemical called glutamate, which can cause serious side effects, scientists have found a new way to help clear harmful proteins from the brain using gene-based tools.
Glutamate is an important chemical in the brain. It helps with memory, learning, and mood. But when there’s too much of it, it can cause a dangerous buildup of a protein called tau. Tau buildup is one of the main causes of Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders. It leads to brain cell damage and eventually cell death.
Dr. Justin Ichida and his team at the Keck School of Medicine at USC found that reducing glutamate is not a good solution. Doing so can harm the brain and cause memory loss, movement problems, and even unconsciousness. So, the team looked for another way to stop tau buildup—without lowering glutamate levels.
They turned their attention to the brain’s own cleaning system. Using lab-grown brain models made from stem cells (called organoids), the scientists studied how cells from both healthy people and Alzheimer’s patients reacted to glutamate. In the patients’ brain cells, too much glutamate caused tau to build up and brain cells to die.
The same thing happened in mice with a tau mutation that causes dementia.
To fix this, the researchers searched for genes that reacted to glutamate and found one called KCTD20. When they blocked this gene in both the brain models and the mice, the amount of tau dropped significantly. Brain cells were healthier, even after being exposed to glutamate.
Here’s how it worked: blocking KCTD20 activated lysosomes—the brain’s natural waste removal system. Lysosomes surrounded the tau proteins, broke them down, and removed them from brain cells.
This finding is important because it shows that instead of trying to reduce glutamate, we might be able to treat Alzheimer’s by helping the brain get rid of toxic tau proteins more effectively. That way, we avoid the dangerous side effects of current treatments.
Dr. Jesse Lai, one of the researchers, said this method of improving tau clearance could be a powerful new way to treat Alzheimer’s and similar diseases. Dr. Joshua Berlind, another team member, added that this discovery could lead to better, more targeted treatments in the future.
Right now, this research is still in the early stages. But it opens the door for future treatments that target the KCTD20 gene or boost the brain’s waste-clearing system. If scientists can turn this idea into a real therapy, it could help slow down or even prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
This breakthrough shows that sometimes the best way to treat a disease is not to fight it head-on, but to support the body’s natural systems. In this case, helping the brain clean itself may be the key to protecting memory and brain health.
The study was published in the journal Neuron. It gives new hope to millions of people affected by Alzheimer’s and other brain disorders.
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 disease.
Copyright © 2025 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
