A drug that restores mind metabolism in mouse fashions of Alzheimer’s additionally improved cognitive operate. The invention might assist researchers discover further pathways to combating the signs of this mind illness, past the telltale amyloid plaques and tau tangles which can be hallmarks of Alzheimer’s.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Scientists are experimenting with a novel method to treating Alzheimer’s illness in mice. They’re utilizing a drug that helps the mind make vitality. NPR’s Jon Hamilton says in a mouse, a minimum of, the remedy can reverse reminiscence loss.
JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: The mind is powered by sugar within the type of glucose. And in a younger, wholesome individual, mind cells are actually good at remodeling glucose into vitality. However Dr. Katrin Andreasson of Stanford College says in somebody with Alzheimer’s…
KATRIN ANDREASSON: The vitality metabolism actually tanks. It actually drops.
HAMILTON: So Andreasson and a crew of scientists did an experiment with mice that develop a type of Alzheimer’s. They altered the animal’s genes in a method they thought would make glucose metabolism even worse and, consequently, speed up the illness.
ANDREASSON: We anticipated to see every part a lot, a lot, a lot worse. However, no, it was the whole flip reverse.
HAMILTON: Finally, the crew discovered an evidence. The genetic tweak had altered the habits of cells referred to as astrocytes. Often, these cells assist present vitality to neurons, the cells concerned in reminiscence and pondering. However Andreasson says when Alzheimer’s plaques and tangles start to seem within the mind, astrocytes cease doing this job.
ANDREASSON: The astrocytes are type of put to sleep, however you bought to wake them up, you realize, to get them to assist the neurons.
HAMILTON: The genetic tweak appeared to get the astrocytes again on monitor. To check that concept, the crew did one other experiment. Andreasson says they might place a mouse within the heart of a shiny, white disc below a vivid gentle.
ANDREASSON: It actually does not prefer it. It needs to get out of there, nevertheless it has to study the place the escape gap is.
HAMILTON: By following visible cues. Andreasson says wholesome mice realized methods to discover the exit virtually immediately.
ANDREASSON: However within the Alzheimer mice, the time to seek out the escape gap actually skyrocketed.
HAMILTON: Till the crew gave these mice an experimental most cancers drug. It awoke the astrocytes the identical method the genetic tweak had. It additionally restored regular glucose metabolism within the hippocampus, an space that is important to reminiscence and navigation. And as soon as a mouse had been handled, it might escape the brilliant gentle as shortly as a wholesome animal. One other experiment confirmed that the drug additionally restored human astrocytes and neurons derived from Alzheimer’s sufferers. The outcomes seem within the journal Science, and Shannon Macauley of the College of Kentucky says they present that Alzheimer’s includes much more than simply plaques and tangles.
SHANNON MACAULEY: The thought that we are able to have these metabolic modifications in our mind however they’re reversible, to me, is a really thrilling growth and may type of change how we take into consideration concentrating on this illness.
HAMILTON: Macauley, who wrote an editorial accompanying the research, says the analysis provides to the proof that cells apart from neurons play an essential function in Alzheimer’s. She says the mind is a bit like a beehive. Neurons would be the queen bees, however they’re saved alive by employee bees like astrocytes.
MACAULEY: And people employee bees are getting unbelievably taxed from all of the issues that they are being requested to do, and so when that occurs, the entire system does not work nicely. And I believe that is what’s occurring type of within the Alzheimer’s mind.
HAMILTON: Macauley says remedies geared toward these employee bees might ultimately assist Alzheimer’s sufferers, together with those that are already taking new medication that take away amyloid plaques. She says amyloid medication can decelerate the illness, however a metabolic drug may really reverse some signs.
MACAULEY: Possibly this will make your astrocytes and your neurons work just a little bit higher so as to operate just a little bit higher. Possibly you’ll be able to plateau these reminiscence declines or get just a little govt operate again.
HAMILTON: If the method works in individuals, she says, not simply mice.
Jon Hamilton, NPR Information.
Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional info.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This textual content might not be in its remaining kind and could also be up to date or revised sooner or later. Accuracy and availability might differ. The authoritative document of NPR’s programming is the audio document.