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Alzheimer's protein may spread like an infection, human brain scans suggest
For the first time, scientists have produced evidence in living humans that the protein tau, which mars the brain in Alzheimer's disease, spreads from neuron to neuron. Although such movement wasn't directly observed, the finding may illuminate how neurodegeneration occurs in the devastating illness, and it could provide new ideas for stemming the brain damage that robs so many of memory and cognition.
[...] Researchers at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom combined two brain imaging techniques, functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography (PET) scanning, in 17 Alzheimer's patients to map both the buildup of tau and their brains' functional connectivity—that is, how spatially separated brain regions communicate with each other. Strikingly, they found the largest concentrations of the damaging tau protein in brain regions heavily wired to others, suggesting that tau may spread in a way analogous to influenza during an epidemic, when people with the most social contacts will be at greatest risk of catching the disease.
The research team says this pattern, described yesterday in Brain [open, DOI: 10.1093/brain/awx347] [DX], supports something known as the "transneuronal spread" hypothesis for Alzheimer's disease, which had previously been demonstrated in mice but not people. "We come down quite strongly in favor of the idea that tau is starting in one place and moving across neurons and synapses to other places," says clinical neurologist Thomas Cope, one of the study's authors. "That has never before been shown in humans. That's very exciting." Because the researchers looked at Alzheimer's patients with a range of disease severity, they were also able to demonstrate that, when tau accumulation was higher, brain regions were on the whole less connected. The strength of connections also decreased, and connections were increasingly random.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @09:43PM (8 children)
So is Alzheimer's a prion disease, like CJD?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday January 08 2018, @09:48PM (1 child)
Alzheimer's research is totally fucked. [soylentnews.org] Nobody is really sure what causes it or how to stop it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:28AM
oh fuck that is sad
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 08 2018, @10:18PM (5 children)
From what little I know about it, it sounds like the amyloid conformation is a more stable one than the healthy structure, so while this probably isn't *transmissible* like vCJD or similar, once spontaneously established, it may have a similar progression...Christ, this is scary.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:32AM (3 children)
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/01/02/575055148/neuroscientist-predicts-much-better-treatment-for-alzheimers-is-10-years-away [npr.org]
Seems like the big thing here is they've confirmed the role of tau in the human process (and not mice).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rylyeh on Tuesday January 09 2018, @05:36AM
There is this: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/specks-brain-alzheimers-plaque-forming-protein [sciencenews.org] which provides some hope assuming it also translates to humans from mice.
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 09 2018, @08:55PM (1 child)
I have a hypothesis, and as someone who isn't formally educated in medicine, this may be way off...but...bear with it for a moment:
Do you suppose that some combination of diet, environmental factors, and plain old aging is degrading the amount of energy total in the cells' mitochondria, and being stuck too long in low energy states makes it hard to maintain the less-energetically-favorable but normal state of brain structure? That is, since the amyloid is a lower-energy state, could circulation problems, bad nutrition, oxidative damage, etc possibly be making it more likely for proteins to collapse into the diseased forms? Something something, quantum, metastable, etc. I don't know, just spitballing here.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Wednesday January 10 2018, @03:01AM
Well, not my area, and the spit plus the something, but. Yeah, it seems like understanding is starting to come. We can stay tuned and see what comes next!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:53PM
brought to you by the social security administration. no checks for you fuckers!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 08 2018, @10:56PM (2 children)
Or: the infectious agent which makes tau spreads, wait for it.... like an infection.
It it so farfetched to imagine that a virus, or any other self-replicating microbial entity, could manufacture tau as part of their normal life processes?
Could this also mean that a tau-eating microbe might potentially cure, or at least mitigate, Alzheimers?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:14AM (1 child)
So no, that wouldn't help with already infected cells.
Supposedly a while back there was experimental treatment using ultrasound waves (like for imaging a fetus in a pregnant mother) that with the proper pulse frequency/power was triggering flushing activities or breaking up the proteins without damaging the cells, allowing the body to flush them out, like it was claimed it normally does. I am not sure what happened to that research or if it was another false scientific study to drum up funding, but if it worked, that could be a huge boon, even if the primary source of issue doesn't become known for a while yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @03:10PM
Actually, it makes sense: if it spreads, it could be cut out, through neurosurgery. Affected parts of brain should be extracted to stop the spreading of disease.
All that provided that we are now certain that the protein is not just a symptom, but also a damaging agent of disease, of course.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by optotronic on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:58AM (4 children)
If this is the case, wouldn't it be theoretically possible to detect it early and cut it out like brain cancer? Better odds of survival than doing nothing, perhaps.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 09 2018, @03:12AM (3 children)
Instead of cutting, I'd recommend MRI monitored fiber optic delivered laser thermal ablation... yes, that's a thing, and it's damned good at killing specifically targeted brain tissue.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @03:22AM (2 children)
Why, just like a bullet, only more fancily expensive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:00AM (1 child)
Yes, I remember when they livestreamed JFK's brain surgery.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @03:13PM
You are so old then ... maybe you don't really remember, but instead already have Alzheimer's?