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February 25, 2009

Another Link In The Alzheimer's Chain?

Scientists from Yale University may have found another link in the chain to what causes Alzheimer's disease. We know about amyloid plaques and we know about neurofibrillary tangles, now there seems to be a relationship with prions, the same family of proteins that cause Mad Cow Disease.

"It's been a black box. We have known that amyloid beta is bad for the brain, but we have not known exactly how amyloid-beta does bad things to neurons," the study's senior author, Stephen M. Strittmatter.

In studies with mice, brain tissue that contained cellular prion proteins reacted with amyloid plaques when exposed to them. Brains without cellular prion proteins did not react to exposure to amyloid plaques.

Cellular prion proteins are normally harmless and exist in all cells, but they can change shape and cause disease. And because the proteins are involved in the early stage of disease development, they're a promising target for the development of new Alzheimer's treatments, he said.

This link makes sense since both are degenerative brain diseases. Now I wonder what the relationship is between this and the discovery of an Alzheimer's link with the herpes simplex 1 virus in cold sores I blogged about in December 2008.

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Posted by linda at February 25, 2009 6:21 PM