New Approach to Slow Alzheimer’s Progression Identified – The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai scientists have made a significant breakthrough in the study of Alzheimer’s disease through a different method aimed at possibly slowing or halting the disease’s progression. According to their work published May 27 in Nature Neuroscience, which looks into the role of reactive astrocytes and the plexin-B1 protein in Alzheimer’s pathology, this sheds light on the ways brain cells communicate with each other and provides new hope for treatment. This research represents an important turning point for understanding and fighting against Alzheimer’s.
The research’s core is about altering the plexin-B1 protein in order to enhance the brain’s ability to clear away amyloid plaques, which are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. In this process, it has been noted that reactive astrocytes— cells activated by injury or sickness— play a vital role. These cells control the space around amyloid plaques and therefore affect other brain cells’ capacity for approaching and getting rid of these harmful build-ups. The study used a complex dataset analysis that compared people who do not have Alzheimer’s with those who do, aiming at revealing the molecular and cellular basis of the condition.
The Principal Investigator for the project is Hongyan Zou PhD, who holds the position of Professor of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience at Icahn Mount Sinai; she commented on how important their discovery could be for future Alzheimer’s research. “Our findings open up new avenues in this area,” said Dr. Zou when talking about potential therapies developed through understanding interactions between different types of cells during degenerative disorders treatment.
The study achieved something notable by verifying gene network models of Alzheimer’s disease at multiple scales. In addition, Dr. Bin Zhang, the Willard T.C. Johnson Research Professor of Neurogenetics at Icahn Mount Sinai, explained how the research contributes to our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease and could lead to new treatments: “Our gene network models made a very important prediction which has been confirmed in this study; it significantly advances our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease. We now have a much stronger foundation for creating different kinds of drugs based on these predictive network models than we did before.”
This investigation demonstrates that stopping the progression of Alzheimer’s disease through targeted therapies may be possible because plexin-B1 plays such a critical role in it. They state that while their findings are a big step forward in fighting Alzheimer’s, further studies must be done so as to make them helpful in finding cures for those who have the condition.
Dr. Zhang shared his team’s hope for designing treatments that can stop or slow down the advancement of Alzheimer’s, an expression of their commitment to exploring how plexin-B1 could be used therapeutically.
This study was funded by the NIH National Institute on Aging (NIA) grants U01AG046170 and RF1AG057440, and is part of the NIA led Accelerating Medicines Partnership Alzheimer’s Disease (AMP-AD) Target Discovery and Preclinical Validation Program. It is a collaborative effort in which researchers combine to speed up the process of moving from finding potential drug targets to creating new drugs for treating or preventing Alzheimer’s disease.
Study source – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-024-01664-w
Alzheimer’s Disease Symptoms
Alzheimer’s disease, whether early-onset or common, presents a range of symptoms that impact memory, thinking, and behavior, gradually impairing daily activities and functions. Early symptoms typically include:
- Forgetting important things, especially recently learned information or important dates.
- Asking for the same information repeatedly.
- Trouble solving basic problems, like managing bills or following recipes.
- Losing track of the date or time of year.
- Difficulty remembering where they are and how they arrived there.
- Vision problems, including issues with depth perception.
- Trouble joining conversations or finding the right words.
- Misplacing items and inability to trace steps to find them.
- Poor judgment and withdrawal from work and social situations.
- Changes in mood and personality.
As the disease progresses, symptoms become more severe and include:
- Deepening confusion about time, place, and life events.
- Suspicions about friends, family, or caregivers.
- Trouble speaking, swallowing, or walking.
- Severe memory loss.
- Hallucinations and delusions that may worsen over time.
- Violence, demands, and suspicion directed toward those around them.
- Difficulty eating and swallowing.
- Weight loss, sometimes severe.
- Unintentional passing of urine or stools.
- Gradual loss of speech.
- Significant problems with short- and long-term memory.
- Difficulty changing position or moving around without assistance.
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