United States: A new study shows that Alzheimer’s disease progresses in two stages. First, there is a slow increase in inflammation in the brain, and then it is followed by a faster decline in brain health. Researchers looked at the genetic activity of brain cells from people who had Alzheimer’s to learn this important information.
However, and most critically, the first of these phases is circumscribed and precedes the symptomology of memory loss, which means that there could be the potential for diagnosis and intervention at a point not currently possible.
The end of the second stage leads to a higher degree of destruction that includes the fearfully familiar formation of protein plaques and tangles coupled with extensive neuronal injury and a decline in the patient’s mental ability.
As reported by Sciencealert.com, they, the researchers from the University Of Washington and the Allen Institute For Brain Science, mapped the genetic activity of single neurons in a region of the brain called middle temporal gyrus that is responsible for memory, language and vision functions.
‘This approach gives a systemic picture of the exact, ultra-high-resolution identity of the cell types that are involved at some stage of the disease, their localization in the tissue organization and timing of involvement as disease progresses’, pointed out the authors of the published paper.
The researchers studied post-mortem brains from 84 individuals who had passed away with Alzheimer’s and had an average age of 88 years. These readings and measurements were compared with brains of other donors who did not have Alzheimer’s in order to ascertain critical differences.
Besides, the investigations reported new pathologic stages and proving the selective impairment of the cognitively pivotal inhibitory neuron in the first stage. This might be how issues in neural circuits are first introduced according to the team behind this research.
Previously, excitatory neurons – the neurons that ‘turn on’ other neurons – have been associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Interneurons or inhibitory neurons are those that quiet or stop neurons from firing, so the tie to Alzheimer’s here is a new one to me.
These are contribution to a more detailed, public map of how Alzheimer’s harms the brain known as the Seattle Alzheimer’s Disease Brain Cell Atlas.
The hope is that by tracking this path of neuron destruction more closely and we can better understand how the Alzheimer’s is taking hold what stops it, and what allows it to happen.
As our scientific technology gets more and more advanced and more capable, we’re learning more about the complexities of Alzheimer’s whether that’s with the triggers elsewhere in the body and links to the other disease as well or can say hidden initial phase we previously hadn’t discovered.