In a recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers have made a big development in understanding how Alzheimer’s disease spreads through the brain.
They discovered a critical period of time where medical intervention could halt its onset.
The research is from the University of Southampton. One author is Dr. Katrin Deinhardt.
A hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease is the accumulation of tau protein in neurons which causes loss of brain volume.
This build-up, known as neurofibrillary tangles, is formed when a diseased version of tau folds itself incorrectly.
Prior to this research, very little was known about the timescale of this process and how the misfolded tau proteins spread to other cells.
In the study, the team found that the tau very quickly spread to other neurons and started to misfold and accumulate.
However, despite the tau build-up, it did not cause aggressive damage and both the donating and accepting neurons remained functional and capable of sending electrical messages.
The team says that misfolding tau was not immediately toxic and that the affected cells could tolerate the build-up better than they anticipated.
This is a really positive outcome and highlights that there is a window of time where therapeutic intervention could take place to rescue neurons with tau pathology.
The researchers are really excited to find that neurons with misfolded tau could remain healthy because this suggests they could be saved before the occurrence of cell death that leads to brain shrinkage and memory problems.
They hope that the new findings will encourage further research into this therapeutic window in order to slow or even stop the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
If you care about Alzheimer’s disease, please read studies about this antibiotic drug may treat common dementia effectively and findings of this new discovery may improve treatments of high blood pressure and dementia.
For more information about dementia treatment and prevention, please see recent studies about an important cause of dementia in some people and results showing two big risk factors for cognitive decline.
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