Molecule impairs brain cells that fail in Alzheimer’s
Blocking one part of misbehaving immune cells could ease dementia symptoms
A molecule on disease-fighting cells in the brain may be responsible for their failure to clear errant proteins in people with Alzheimer’s disease, a new study finds. Removing this molecule in mice allowed their cells to gobble up the culprit proteins more efficiently, and prevented mice susceptible to Alzheimer’s from developing memory problems as they aged.
“This is a possible target that we could look at for preventing Alzheimer’s disease, or preventing progression of dementia,” says Katrin Andreasson, a coauthor of the new research, published December 8 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.