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Possible treatments for Alzheimers
08/01/2001 10:54 - (SA)
New York - Scientists have discovered how
an abnormal protein found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease
patients works, a finding that could one day lead to better
treatments for the most common form of dementia.
Communication between brain cells - critical to learning and
memory - involves signalling proteins and their receptors that
interact like a key opening a lock. Interfering with this
communication likely contributes to the disabling changes seen
in Alzheimer's disease, according to Dr Jerrel Yakel and
associates from the National Institutes of Environmental Health
Sciences, National Institutes of Health, in Research Triangle
Park, North Carolina.
The brains of Alzheimer's disease patients contain deposits
of an abnormal protein called beta-amyloid, but scientists have
not been certain whether the protein is the cause or the result
of the disease process. In an effort to understand
beta-amyloid's role in the condition, the investigators studied
its impact on the function of nAChR - a key receptor - located in
the memory areas of rat brains.
Their experimental results, reported in the January issue
of the Journal of Neuroscience, confirm that beta-amyloid can
significantly reduce, by as much as 39%, the ability of nAChR
to transmit messages conveyed by the brain's signalling
proteins, in effect preventing the key from turning the lock.
The beta-amyloid specifically reduced the response of the
receptors to the signalling protein acetylcholine but not to
other signalling proteins, the researchers note, which may
account for the benefits seen with drugs that increase the
levels of acetylcholine in Alzheimer's disease patients.
Rather than being a result of Alzheimer's disease, the
scientists suggest, beta-amyloid might cause the symptoms of
the disease through its interference with the nAChR receptor.
Finding drugs that can prevent beta-amyloid from
interfering with the function of nAChR might restore normal
communications and improve the many symptoms of Alzheimer's
disease, the authors conclude.
"Knowing how the disease process works makes it more likely
that medical science can find ways to slow, halt, or even
reverse the process,'' Yakel said in a statement released by
National Institutes of Health.
- Reuters
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