INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — About seven million people in the U.S. are living with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. But research finds, after death, some older adults have substantial signs of the disease inside the brain… but never had symptoms. Those cases could be the key to developing new therapies.
It’s called asymptomatic Alzheimer’s. Nur Jury-Garfe, PhD, assistant research professor at the IU School of Medicine says when studied postmortem, these brains show beta-amyloid plaques and tau tangles… the two hallmarks of the disease.
“The postmortem diagnosis it was ‘oh, this person had Alzheimer’s.’ but when you see and you go to the clinical records, they were perfectly normal,” she explained.
Now researchers are trying to determine how these asymptomatic cases avoid cognitive decline. One theory involves immune cells in the brain called microglia and their association with the beta-amyloid plaques.
“You have the plaque, and then in the asymptomatic cases the microglia is more like dynamic. So it can reach faster the plaque. Once it’s there in the plaque, it can embrace the plaque and start fighting and eating all these toxic molecules,” said Prof. Jury-Garfe.
If researchers can find a way to mimic these protective mechanisms, it could lead to therapies to help slow the progression of symptoms in someone with the disease.
According to the National Institutes of Health, 30-50% of brains donated to research as “controls” or healthy end up having these markers of Alzheimer’s. The older individuals, with an average age of 85, had no symptoms of the disease while living.
Contributors to this news report include: Lindsay Dailey, Producer; Kyle Fisher, Videographer; Roque Correa, Editor.
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Sources:
https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/facts-figures
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
| Nur Jury-Garfe, PhD
Assistant Research Professor at the IU School of Medicine |
Ben Middelkamp
Communications Manager at the IU School of Medicine |
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