Alzheimer's brain comparison
Despite a massive global research effort, many basics of Alzheimer's disease onset remain elusive. This has hampered development of treatments effective during the earliest stages of the disease, when prevention is most likely.
But a new discovery by University of Central Florida researchers has revealed a previously unknown mechanism that may drive the early brain function deterioration of Alzheimer's victims, thus opening a new exploratory path in the quest for an Alzheimer's cure.
The research, which will be published Friday, Jan. 8, in the peer-reviewed science and medicine journal PLoS ONE, also demonstrates how the unique application of an existing cell research technique could accelerate the discovery of treatments to exploit the new findings.
Researchers have known for years that a substance called amyloid-beta gums up brain cells when it becomes too concentrated, because it forms damaging deposits on the cells known as plaques. These prevent normal electrical signal generation in the cells, eventually killing them. That drives the memory loss and other problems that plague Alzheimer's sufferers.
Most Alzheimer's studies have focused on brain cells already damaged by amyloid-beta or the effects of high concentration of amyloid-beta. The University of Central Florida team, led by James Hickman, head of the UCF NanoScience Technology Center's Hybrid Systems Laboratory, instead explored impacts of very low amyloid-beta concentrations on healthy cells in an effort to mimic the earlier stages of Alzheimer's. The results were shocking.
Squelching the Signals
The UCF team found that over time, though there are no outward signs of damage, exposure to moderate amyloid-beta concentrations somehow prevents electrical signals from traveling normally through the cells. Because the effect is seen in otherwise healthy cells, Hickman believes the team may have uncovered a critical process in the progression of Alzheimer's that could occur before a person shows any known signs of brain impairment.
"What we're claiming is that before you have any behavioral clues, these electrical transmission problems may be occurring," he says.
If this proves true, then the team has opened a promising potential path to an Alzheimer's treatment that could block the onset of the mild cognitive impairment associated with early Alzheimer's. In contrast, all currently available treatments manage symptoms of Alzheimer's after they first appear -- when it is likely too late for prevention.
"I think it's a very important paper," says Dave Morgan, an Alzheimer's expert at the University of South Florida not involved in the research, "This opens up a whole series of important questions, and answering them may lead to alternative drugs or other agents to benefit Alzheimer's patients."
Accelerating Challenging Brain Studies
Kucku Varghese, a former graduate student in the Hickman lab now at the University of Florida, first demonstrated amyloid-beta's effects at low concentrations on healthy cells using a common cell research method that is laborious and unsuitable for long-term experiments. But the Hickman team quickly moved to more advanced experiments using microelectrode arrays (MEA) to study the new finding. MEA studies use cultures of neurons on plates embedded with tiny electrodes that can send and measure electrical signals through nearby cells without damaging them, allowing extended experimentation.
Hickman hopes to use MEAs and other tools to pinpoint the physiological and chemical changes within the brain cells that cause the loss of signal generation in healthy cells. Mechanisms responsible for the changes could offer potential targets for drugs, which pharmaceutical companies could search for using the MEA techniques demonstrated, and the mechanisms might provide a measurable target for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's.
"We're trying to find a marker that will lead to detection and treatment while slowing down Alzheimer's progression and can really make a difference by delaying or even preventing onset of the disease," says Hickman.
###
University of Central Florida: http://www.ucf.edu Thanks to University of Central Florida for this article.
This article has been viewed 563 time(s).
 |
 Digg |
 FarkIt |
 |
 StumbleUpon |
 del.icio.us |
 |
In 1824, three years before he began to publish his famous "double elephant folio" The Birds of America, John James Audubon (1785-1851), the eminent artist of American birds and animals, created a drawing of a running grouse for use in the design for a New Jersey bank note.
The recent discovery of more than a thousand genes known as large intergenic non-coding RNAs (or "lincRNAs") opened up a new approach to understanding the function and organization of the genome. That surprising breakthrough is now made even more compelling with the finding that dozens of these lincRNAs are induced by p53, the most commonly mutated gene in cancer
A genetics research team based at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia continues to discover recurrent translocations—places in which two chromosomes exchange pieces of themselves. As many as 1 in 600 persons carry balanced chromosome translocations, which involve no loss or gain of DNA.
Some trees growing in nutrient-poor forest soil may get what they need by cultivating specific root microbes to create compounds they require. These microbes are exceptionally efficient at turning inorganic minerals into nutrients that the trees can use. Researchers from France report their findings in the July 2010 issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
"Macho, macho man. I've got to be, a macho man. Macho, macho man. I've got to be a macho!" — The Village People
"If one finds something once, it's accidental. If it is found twice, it's puzzling. If found thrice, there is a pattern," the archaeologists Olle Hemdorff and Eva Thäte say.
"In laboratory tests, right- and left-handers associate positive ideas like honesty and intelligence with their dominant side of space and negative ideas with their non-dominant side," says Daniel Casasanto of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Often causing no symptoms in carriers of the disease, worldwide tuberculosis (TB) infects eight to ten million people every year, kills two million, and it is highly contagious as it is spread through coughing and sneezing.