Alzheimer’s disease: Know what it does to your brain

According to the latest statistics presented by the World Health Organistaion, 50 million people globally suffer from some form of dementia. Alzheimer’s disease can disrupt the memory and thinking of an individual. It kills or impairs brain cells. The most common symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are forgetfulness, language issues, inability to recognise people and difficulty with the concept of time. The biggest impact that Alzheimer’s disease has on the brain is the plaque like clusters that forms all over the brain. Made from a protein called beta-amyloid, these clusters or clumps are found inside the fatty membrane that covers the nerve cells. This plaque messes with the signals in the synapses (space between two nerve cells). It is still not clear whether these plaques are the cause of Alzheimer’s or the effects of it. Apart from this, Alzheimer’s disease causes many other changes in the brain’s structure and function, some of which are listed here.

Tangling of brain threads

A protein called tau has the function of maintaining cell structure. Alzheimer’s disease and other degenerative conditions make this protein weak. As the protein fails to deliver its message, the brain threads which previously ran parallel to each other become tangled. This breaks the whole system of nutrient delivery and, without the nutrients, the brain cells die.

Signal lost

Brain works on signals. More than 100 billion neurons work in the brain in order to deliver the message to the different parts of the body. Alzheimer’s disease interferes with these signals by affecting the neurotransmitters in the brain. Since the signal become weak or reach somewhere, they are not supposed to, it causes difficulty in learning, remembering and communicating.

Brain inflammation

Brain is guarded by the microglia. Microglia is a cell that first interprets the presence of Alzheimer’s in the body. As it interprets, it goes into overdrive in order to protect the other cells. Rather than protecting them, it causes inflammation in the brain, because of which more cells die.

Brain shrieks

As the Alzheimer’s disease progresses, the size of the brain shrinks. It starts by the withering of the surface layer. But, in the later stages, it has shown that the whole brain can shrink. The largest part of the brain is the cerebrum. This part is the one that is affected the most by this. This causes the inability to recall and concentrate.

Affects metabolism

Fighting Alzheimer’s disease requires nutrients and oxygen. With the brain occupying more than 20 per cent of the whole body oxygen supply, it becomes difficult to break down the nutrients and the metabolism slows itself down. This causes weight loss and even malnutrition in the last stages of this disease.

Published: September 21, 2019 7:47 pm | Updated:September 21, 2019 7:48 pm

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