Scientists map brain changes to improve Alzheimer’s treatment : Schott

Scientists say Alzheimer’s research needs to take a broader view of how Alzheimer’s affects the brain, whether it’s cortical changes or the role of inflammation.

Matt York/AP

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Matt York/AP

Scientists say Alzheimer’s research needs to take a broader view of how Alzheimer’s affects the brain, whether it’s cortical changes or the role of inflammation.

Matt York/AP

The field of research into Alzheimer’s disease is expanding.

Brain researchers, who have focused for decades on the sticky amyloid plaques and tangled tau fibers associated with the disease, are looking for other potential causes of impaired memory and thinking.

The search this week Alzheimer’s Association International Conference In San Diego, sessions are exploring factors such as genes, brain injury, clogged arteries and inflammation.

A group of Seattle researchers atlas It shows how different types of brain cells change in Alzheimer’s disease. The goal is to help scientists identify new approaches to treatment.

“Certainly, plaques and tangles are a feature,” says Mary Carrillo, Chief Scientific Officer of the Alzheimer’s Association. “It doesn’t mean that plaque is the cause of cell death.”

Plaques are clumps of a protein called beta-amyloid that appear in the spaces between neurons. Tangles are made up of a protein called tau that appears inside neurons.

Both proteins tend to accumulate in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. However, its role in killing brain cells is still unknown.

Carrillo The Alzheimer’s field says it needs to look to cancer research where a better understanding of the disease has led to better treatments.

The change comes after a series of drugs successfully removed amyloid plaques and tau tangles from the brain, but failed to stop the disease.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved one amyloid drug, Aduhelm, but whether it actually helps patients is still being evaluated.

Alzheimer’s Disease Atlas

The studies that created the atlas symbolize how researchers are recalibrating.

“What we’re trying to do in this study is look at cellular vulnerabilities early in the disease. [people] Before you have cognitive impairment, you have plaque and tangles.” Dr. C. Dirk Keanea neuropathologist at the University of Washington.

To create the atlas, Keane and his team used more than one million cells from 84 brains donated by people who participated in an Alzheimer’s disease research project run by the University of Washington and the Kaiser Permanente Washington Institute. Analyzed.

The brains came from donors “at all stages of the disease,” Keene said, “so we can identify what’s going on in people with early stage to advanced disease.” said.

The effort is funded by the National Institute on Aging and was born out of the federal BRAIN Initiative. launch by President Obama in 2013

Atlas was born out of the realization that if we want to treat diseases of very complex organelles, we need to understand them much better than we do. EdlineA senior researcher at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, he played a key role in the analysis of brain tissue.

So the team spent years studying cells in healthy brains before looking at brains affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

“We defined what a normal adult brain looks like, and now we can use that knowledge to look for changes occurring in specific cell types.”

find vulnerable brain cells

At an Alzheimer’s conference, the team described changes in more than 100 cell types taken from the cortex, a brain region important for memory and thinking.

One finding was that neurons making connections within the cortex itself were much more likely to die than neurons making connections to distant regions of the brain.

“What we’re seeing is a profound effect on cortical circuitry, which is very likely the reason for the cognitive decline,” says Lein.

If so, treatments designed to protect these vulnerable neurons may prevent the decline in memory and thinking associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

The team also found a proliferation of brain cells that contribute to inflammation. These included specific immune cells and types of cells that responded to injury.

“So while neurons are lost, non-neuronal cells are actually gaining and changing,” says Lein.

The findings support the idea that inflammation plays an important role in Alzheimer’s disease and that anti-inflammatory drugs may help protect the brain.

The Seattle team hopes other scientists will use the Brain Cell Atlas to come up with new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

“We created an open-access resource that the entire community can access and see this data,” says Lein. “They can mine it to accelerate progress across the field.”

Speeding up progress is one reason Kyle Travagliniresearchers at the Allen Institute jumped at the chance to work on an Alzheimer’s disease project.

“My grandmother started developing Alzheimer’s when I was just starting college,” said Travaglini, who will complete her PhD in 2021.

Travaglini says what makes the Atlas project so appealing is that it’s not based on preconceived notions about what causes Alzheimer’s disease.

“It’s like seeing the same disease that everyone sees in a completely different way,” he says.