A drug that restores mind metabolism in mouse fashions of Alzheimer’s additionally improved cognitive operate. The invention may assist researchers discover extra pathways to combating the signs of this mind illness, past the telltale amyloid plaques and tau tangles which might 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 power. NPR’s Jon Hamilton says in a mouse, at the least, 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 particular person, mind cells are actually good at remodeling glucose into power. However Dr. Katrin Andreasson of Stanford College says in somebody with Alzheimer’s…
KATRIN ANDREASSON: The power 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 thing a lot, a lot, a lot worse. However, no, it was the whole flip reverse.
HAMILTON: Finally, the crew discovered a proof. The genetic tweak had altered the habits of cells referred to as astrocytes. Normally, these cells assist present power to neurons, the cells concerned in reminiscence and considering. However Andreasson says when Alzheimer’s plaques and tangles start to look within the mind, astrocytes cease doing this job.
ANDREASSON: The astrocytes are sort of put to sleep, however you bought to wake them up, you understand, to get them to assist the neurons.
HAMILTON: The genetic tweak appeared to get the astrocytes again on observe. 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 shiny gentle.
ANDREASSON: It actually does not prefer it. It desires to get out of there, but it surely has to study the place the escape gap is.
HAMILTON: By following visible cues. Andreasson says wholesome mice realized the best way to discover the exit nearly immediately.
ANDREASSON: However within the Alzheimer mice, the time to search out the escape gap actually skyrocketed.
HAMILTON: Till the crew gave these mice an experimental most cancers drug. It wakened the astrocytes the identical method the genetic tweak had. It additionally restored regular glucose metabolism within the hippocampus, an space that is crucial to reminiscence and navigation. And as soon as a mouse had been handled, it may 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 improvement and might sort of change how we take into consideration focusing on this illness.
HAMILTON: Macauley, who wrote an editorial accompanying the research, says the analysis provides to the proof that cells aside from neurons play an necessary position in Alzheimer’s. She says the mind is a bit like a beehive. Neurons will be the queen bees, however they’re stored 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 feel that is what’s taking place sort of within the Alzheimer’s mind.
HAMILTON: Macauley says remedies geared toward these employee bees may finally 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 truly reverse some signs.
MACAULEY: Perhaps this could make your astrocytes and your neurons work a bit of bit higher in an effort to operate a bit of bit higher. Perhaps you’ll be able to plateau these reminiscence declines or get a bit of 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 will not be in its ultimate type and could also be up to date or revised sooner or later. Accuracy and availability could differ. The authoritative report of NPR’s programming is the audio report.
