Thanks to the rapid progress of research in recent decades, it becomes clear that the disorders that appear and develop with age are the consequences of the accumulation in the body of harmful substances from an environment and a fashion. unhealthy lives. In this way, all sorts of ills and disorders are gradually appearing, including the terrible and dreaded Alzheimer's disease.
If Alzheimer's disease is also feared in the world today, it is because it causes a dramatic decline in intellectual abilities on the one hand and on the other hand it is considered incurable.
Alzheimer's disease and its symptoms
Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that consists of dysfunction of brain neurons leading to death. A cell death that causes tissue loss and considerable atrophy of the brain, compromising almost all of the functions of the brain.
Alzheimer's is a progressive decline in cognitive abilities (memory, thinking, reasoning) affecting daily life, and damage to the brain can begin to occur more than 20 years before the first concrete signs appear in people's lives.
People with this condition experience mental confusion, confusion and difficulty expressing themselves and their thoughts.
A new approach in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease
So far, all the clinical studies that have been conducted to try to find a cure for this disease have failed. However, it is not without counting on a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge in Great Britain and Lund University in Sweden, which, based on the recent discovery of the potential causes of the disease, led a study to finally find a way to treat it.
To do this, researchers have adopted a novel strategy in the field of Alzheimer's disease research, a new approach that consists in directly attacking agents recently identified as responsible for neuronal cell death.
How some proteins cause the destruction of brain cells
These agents are proteins, called oligomers, which accumulate and block the transmission of neurotransmitters between synapses (region of contact between two neurons or between a neuron and a cell). These clusters also hinder the proper functioning of neurons and cause the destruction of the latter.
The researchers explain that a healthy person's brain has "cleansing" agents that remove these proteins. In people affected by the disease, however, these cleaning agents would be less effective or less present, and dangerous deposits would accumulate over time. Not eliminated, they would cause the disease.
A new challenge: to prevent the formation of these proteins
For Professor Sir Christopher Dobson of the University of Cambridge, it is quite possible to find compounds that would prevent the formation of oligomeric proteins responsible for neurodegeneration.
The goal of the scientists was therefore to stop the generation of toxic protein species at their very source, by studying how certain compounds could prevent proteins from forming clusters rather than trying to target them for proteins. destroy, and this is the second novelty of this study.
This research, a world first, gives hope to millions of sick people, giving them better days.
Understanding the processes involved in Alzheimer's disease
In the brain, information moves in two ways:
- In neurons through electrical signals
- Between neurons thanks to neurotransmitters (dozens have been identified by scientists)
Thus, Alzheimer's disease affects both the way electrical signals move through neurons and the activity of neurotransmitters that transmit information between neurons.
Also, when researchers microscopically observe the brains of Alzheimer's patients who have died, they observe the following:
- the destruction of nerve cells on the one hand, and their connections on the other.
- inside cells, proteins that form abnormally skeins obstructing the passage of nutrients and other essential resources to the cells, which wither.
- between the nerve cells, plaques accumulate, also composed of abnormal clusters of protein fragments that block the action of neurotransmitters, preventing communication between neurons.
