- Alzheimer’s disease is estimated to be the cause of dementia in 32 million people globally and currently has no cure.
- Most scientists believe Alzheimer’s disease occurs from changes in the brain caused by abnormal build-ups of amyloid and tau proteins.
- An international team of researchers has conducted a trial using a novel gene silencing therapy for Alzheimer’s disease aimed at lowering the amount of tau protein in the body.
Although scientists are still not completely sure what causes Alzheimer’s disease, the most popular theory is that it occurs when abnormal build-ups of two proteins —
While doctors can treat symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease to improve a person’s quality of life, there is still no cure for the dementia condition that is estimated to affect
Now an international team of researchers has conducted a trial using a new gene silencing therapy for Alzheimer’s disease.
The therapy silences the
This study was recently published in the journal
Tau is a protein most commonly found in neurons, the central cells of the nervous system. In a healthy brain, tau helps stabilize the tube-like internal structure of nerve cells.
These tube-like structures — known as
In a brain with Alzheimer’s disease, the tau protein detaches from the microtubules and instead attaches to other tau proteins within the brain cell. This causes abnormal build-ups of tau protein and the microtubules to collapse.
These build-ups of tau protein join to form “tangles” within the brain cells. When that happens, the neurons are no longer able to communicate with each other.
“We know that tau tangles track with [the] progression of Alzheimer’s, meaning the worse that…
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