Vetted by NeuralPress's Multi-Agent Verifier for strict factual validity and event relevance. Our compliance engine cross-checks and filters search results to ensure zero false correlations or misleading content.
Primary Sources
Scientists Discover a Key Difference in Brains That Resist Alzheimer's
The brain changes associated with Alzheimer's usually lead to a severe loss of memory and cognitive abilities, but not always.Now, a new study led by a team at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) helps explain why.Based on postmortem brain research, around 20 to 30 percent of older adults are thought to have asymptomatic Alzheimer's disease (ASYMAD). Their brains have the characteristic buildup of misfolded amyloid-beta and tau proteins, but they show no detrimental mental effects."Even when the brain shows clear signs of Alzheimer's, some people stay mentally sharp," says UCSD medical scientist Sushil Mahata.In their new study in mice, Mahata and colleagues have discovered a molecular switch that may be responsible for connecting these amyloid-beta plaques and tau tangles to cognitive decline.Illustration of amyloid plaques forming on neurons. (Science Photo Library/Canva)While the findings need to be further confirmed in human patients with Alzheimer's, it's a significant advance in our understanding of ASYMAD, and could aid the development of treatments to tackle Alzheimer's symptoms."This work establishes a mechanistically grounded framework for studying cognitive resilience in Alzheimer's disease and provides a scalable platform for interrogating sex-specific protective pathways, identifying early biomarkers of disease trajectory, and enabling mechanism-guided development of preventive therapeutic strategies," write the researchers in their published paper.To begin with, the researchers deployed an AI-powered scanning technique on genetic data points covering thousands of postmortem human brain samples – from people who died both with and without Alzheimer's disease.That gave the team a bank of around 40 different genes that together formed a 'fingerprint' of Alzheimer's. They used this fingerprint to assess both healthy lab mice and those bred to develop Alzheimer's-like brain pathology.The mouse tests confirmed the fingerprint could distinguish between these groups, but they also revealed something else.Using an AI-based model, the researchers identified the protein chromogranin A (CgA) as a key driver in this gene network. When the researchers bred mice lacking the CgA protein, the animals still developed the biological hallmarks of Alzheimer's without the symptoms.Misfolded tau proteins are shown in red in these brain scans – of normal wild type mice (WT), mice with Alzheimer's biology (PS19), and mice with Alzheimer's biology but no Cg...
What if Alzheimer's wasn't just a brain disease? - Futura-Sciences
Some doctors believe aducanumab should never have been approved. Others argue that it deserves a chance. With millions of people needing an effective treatment, ...
Study finds three distinct patterns of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's ...
... make it hard to tell if a treatment is working. Identifying those who are more likely to decline could make trials more efficient and more informative.
Exciting new treatment being developed for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's
VA researchers have discovered a way to flush unwanted proteins and waste products from the brain by using inhaled puffs of specific amounts of carbon dioxide ...
