Alzheimer’s Research to Amount to a “God Complex”

The Issue
More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), and 1 in 9 Americans over the age of 65 has the disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association (2016). Statistics like these support the national claim of an “Alzheimer’s Epidemic.” This is a regional crisis as well, with North Dakota having the highest AD death rate in America (Alzheimer’s Association, 2016).
The increasing prevalence rates of AD have led scientists to investigate the causes of such a detrimental disease.
 
The Research
Persistent brain research has led to developments in understanding the fundamental causes of AD. In a 2013 article in Experimental Gerontology, biochemist Dr. Cora O’ Neill details the importance of a biochemical pathway called the PI30K/Akt pathway in determining the primary causes of AD.
According to O’ Neill, sustained and abnormal activation of PI3-K/Akt signaling is an early feature of AD. More specifically, dysfunction of this pathway is characterized by progressive resistance to insulin in the brain, abnormal levels of beta-amyloid protein and tau protein, and loss of synaptic transmission.
Synaptic loss can be caused by long term depression (LTD), according to a 2012 review article by Bradley et. al in Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience. LTD results in synaptosis, a process that retracts synapses at the neuromuscular junction, which is important for pruning unwanted synaptic connections during early development.
However, up-regulation of LTD, as a result of over-expression by the protein GSK-3 in the PI3K-Akt pathway, leads to pathological plasticity in an adult brain. So instead of neural connections being made stronger, synaptic connections are being lost, which results in cognitive deficits, memory loss, and other symptoms of AD.
The discoveries of synaptic loss, beta-amyloid protein, tau protein, and insulin resistance as indicators of AD are primarily due to research on post-mortem AD-diagnosed brains. As a result, physicians are not yet able to proactively detect these warning signs to preventatively treat their patients for AD.
But what if they were?
 
The Complex
Would you want to know 10 or 20 years prior to a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease that you would be contracting the disease within a decade or two?
Researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute and the Uppsala University discovered that inflammation, a recognized indicator of protein-dysfunction, can be detected decades before the first appearance of symptoms (2016).
Many believe that knowing in advance would be advantageous, as it would provide opportunity to make lifestyle changes or take prescription medication to slow down the disease.
According to Dr. Elena Rodriguez-Vieitez, first author of the 2016 study at Karolinska Institute, current therapies for AD only mitigate symptoms and don’t actually change the course of the disease.
But what if they did?
The advancements in brain research specific to the “Alzheimer’s Epidemic” has resulted in many implications. However, it seems that as more findings continue to be reported by the scientific community, the general public will be left with more ethical questions. And the study of diseases like AD may be preparing people for a day when they may face their own “God Complex,” being faced with negatively foreshadowing news, having the ability to remedy the condition, and choosing to do something about it, or not.