Autopsies have revealed that some individuals develop the cellular changes indicative of Alzheimer’s disease without ever showing clinical symptoms in their lifetime.
\nVanderbilt University Medical Center memory researchers have discovered a potential genetic variant in these asymptomatic individuals that may make brains more resilient against Alzheimer’s.
\n‘Most Alzheimer’s research is searching for genes that predict the disease, but we’re taking a different approach. We’re looking for genes that predict who among those with Alzheimer’s pathology will actually show clinical symptoms of the disease,’ said principal investigator Timothy Hohman, Ph.D., a post-doctoral research fellow in the Center for Human Genetics Research and the Vanderbilt Memory and Alzheimer’s Center.
\nThe researchers used a marker of Alzheimer’s disease found in cerebrospinal fluid called phosphorylated tau. In brain cells, tau is a protein that stabilises the highways of cellular transport in neurons. In Alzheimer’s disease tau forms ‘tangles’ that disrupt cellular messages.
\nAnalysing a sample of 700 subjects from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, Hohman and colleagues looked for genetic variants that modify the relationship between phosphorylated tau and lateral ventricle dilation \u2014 a measure of disease progression visible with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). One genetic mutation (rs4728029) was found to relate to both ventricle dilation and cognition and is a marker of neuroinflammation.
\n‘This gene marker appears to be related to an inflammatory response in the presence of phosphorylated tau,’ Hohman said.
\n‘It appears that certain individuals with a genetic predisposition toward a ‘bad’ neuroinflammatory response have neurodegeneration. But those with a genetic predisposition toward no inflammatory response, or a reduced one, are able to endure the pathology without marked neurodegeneration.’
\nHohman hopes to expand the study to include a larger sample and investigate gene and protein expression using data from a large autopsy study of Alzheimer’s disease.
\n‘The work highlights the possible mechanism behind asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease, and with that mechanism we may be able to approach intervention from a new perspective. Future interventions may be able to activate these innate response systems that protect against developing Alzheimer’s symptoms,’ Hohman said.\nEurekAlert<\/link>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Autopsies have revealed that some individuals develop the cellular changes indicative of Alzheimer’s disease without ever showing clinical symptoms in their lifetime. Vanderbilt University Medical Center memory researchers have discovered a potential genetic variant in these asymptomatic individuals that may make brains more resilient against Alzheimer’s. ‘Most Alzheimer’s research is searching for genes that predict […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}