First off, I’m sure you have all at least heard of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), and how it causes its victims to lose their memory. I bet, however, that most of you don’t know what the cause of AD is. You aren’t alone though, researchers have been trying to determine what the main cause of AD is for years. They have nailed down several possible etiologies. One theory is that the symptoms of AD start through the aggregation of tau proteins. Tau proteins are in charge of keeping the microtubules of the axon in the neurons in good shape. They regulate the microtubules and keep the neuron’s axon healthy. However, in AD, those tau proteins get over phosphorylated, and this causes them to diffuse away from the microtubules and form clumps making them unable to regulate the microtubule. When the tau proteins aren’t present next to the microtubules, they then fall apart, causing degeneration in the neuron. This video, courtesy of youtube, is a great animated cartoon showing this very process.
Well, why is this important? Neurons fire their signals through the axon, and without the tau proteins, those signals can’t be sent. This is why people who suffer from AD have symptoms such as memory loss and loss of motor control.
So, it should be no surprise that research is going into a medication that stops tau protein clumps from forming, and there is a scientific paper about it.
This paper stated that a new drug was being synthesized, and that patients who suffered from AD were took it showed improvement in their symptoms as opposed to a placebo group. This is great, but my question is this, is this really where research should be focusing? Sure, it alleviates symptoms for AD, but it cannot rebuild what has already been lost. I think research should be focusing on early detection, and looking at early onset AD to figure out what is actually going wrong in AD patients. What are your thoughts?
Alzheimer’s Disease: Where We Stand on Treatment
