We have just learned the development process of this terrible disease...

According to statistics from the World Health Organization, more than 55 million people worldwide are affected by dementia including Alzheimer's disease
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These diseases have brought infinite distress to people
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People with Alzheimer's disease will experience many painful problems such as brain cell death, brain atrophy, memory loss, personality changes, and difficulty in daily activities
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However, effective treatments and therapies have progressed slowly
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To some extent, this is because we still don’t understand what causes this disease or what drives the development of this disease
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In a study recently published in the journal "Science Advances", a group of scientists showed us a new method, using human brain data to analyze the development of Alzheimer's disease for the first time
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They found that the way the disease develops is very different from previously thought
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Usually, in Alzheimer's disease and some other neurodegenerative diseases, some of the proteins in healthy brain cells start to stick together to form tiny clumps
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These harmful protein clumps are called aggregates, and they kill brain cells and cause symptoms such as memory loss
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As the number of aggregates increases, the disease will worsen and eventually lead to the death of the patient
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Scientists already know several processes that may exacerbate the formation of aggregates, but they do not yet understand how these aggregates are formed and which processes play the most critical role in controlling the rate at which they form
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For many years, scientists' research on Alzheimer's disease has mainly relied on some laboratory animal models, such as mice
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This type of method is very effective for studying certain aspects of this disease, such as understanding the influence of genetic factors; but for the entire disease, laboratory animal models are not the best choice, partly because of Alzheimer’s The development time of sick people from the initial mild symptoms to the final death can usually last for decades, and the research time provided by laboratory animals is much shorter than this
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Scientists have always been eager to have a way to directly use human data to understand the development process of Alzheimer's disease in the brain
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However, this has been difficult to do so far
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The first is because the data obtained from humans is much more limited than that obtained from laboratory animals.
Laboratory animals can be artificially changed, but humans cannot
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Second, scientists also lack mathematical models that can combine and analyze different types of human data
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Now, new research uses a physical-chemical method called chemical kinetics to calculate at a micro level what is happening in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease
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In the past decade or so, researchers at the University of Cambridge have been trying to use chemical kinetics in increasingly complex systems
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This method allows researchers to observe and understand the way and speed of interaction between molecules without having to zoom in on the molecular level
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For example, we can observe how quickly stains disappear after using bleach to understand how bleach destroys color molecules
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Although the situation involved in Alzheimer's disease is much more complicated than that of bleaching stains, using similar ideas, researchers can determine how aggregates are formed in the brains of Alzheimer's patients
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Using this new method, the research team found that protein aggregates in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients increased exponentially over time
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This means that after a period of time, one aggregate can produce two; then after the same amount of time, four aggregates can be produced, and so on
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The exponential growth pattern may make the disease appear slow at first, and then suddenly appear to grow rapidly
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For Alzheimer's disease, this growth pattern explains why patients may not show any symptoms at the beginning, or have only mild symptoms, but the symptoms will deteriorate rapidly as aggregates accumulate
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The researchers also discovered that the human brain is actually very good at slowing down the proliferation of aggregates
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From the data point of view, the time required to double the number of aggregates is about 5 years, which is more than 10 times longer than the time required for laboratory animals
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This may be related to many factors, such as the presence of molecules in the brain that can slow down the aggregation step
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These factors are part of ongoing research by researchers
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 Researchers at the University of Cambridge used human data for the first time to quantify the speed of different processes that can lead to Alzheimer's disease
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They found that Alzheimer's disease does not start from a single point in the brain and then triggers a chain reaction that leads to the death of brain cells; it reaches different areas of the brain at an early stage
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Image source: National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health In addition, from past mouse studies, scientists have concluded that Alzheimer’s disease develops in a similar way to many cancers: first gather in one area, Then spread to the entire brain
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Therefore, scientists have always wanted to understand how aggregates spread from one area of ​​the brain to another
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But the new research results show that in fact, at the beginning of Alzheimer's disease, aggregates have already appeared in multiple areas of the brain
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In other words, the diffusion process does not seem to have any effect on the rate of disease progression.
Although diffusion may affect the initial position of aggregates to some extent, the main factor affecting the rate of progression is the proliferation of aggregates in a single brain area
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This means that once Alzheimer's disease starts, stopping the spread of aggregates between brain regions is unlikely to help slow it down, so trying to prevent the spread and spread between regions will have little effect on slowing the disease
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Focusing on the proliferation of aggregates in a single area of ​​the brain may be a more promising strategy
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Perhaps one day, we can use this method to slow down the disease and prolong the life of patients
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This research shows the value of using human data instead of imperfect animal models for research
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Such progress is exciting
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15 years ago, the research team of this work determined the basic molecular mechanism of the simple system in a test tube.
Now they are finally able to apply these methods to human data to study this process at the molecular level of real patients.
It is a crucial step for the future development of treatment methods
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#Create team::#Reference source: https://theconversation.
com/alzheimers-our-research-sheds-light-on-how-the-disease-progresses-in-the-brain-170683https:// #Image source ：Cover image: geralt / Pixabay