Some people do not get Alzheimer's, while the same changes take place in their brains as in patients who do get the disease. Neuroscientist Luuk de Vries and his colleagues investigated the molecular mechanisms that cause them to escape.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia. It is characterised by accumulations of the harmful proteins amyloid-β and phosphorylated tau in the brain. However, some people remain cognitively intact despite these accumulations. These individuals appear to be resilient to Alzheimer's disease.
Lifestyle
Scientists hypothesise that individuals who are resilient to Alzheimer's disease react differently to the harmful proteins than patients with the disease. A link was previously found with an active lifestyle, but the underlying biological processes that may explain the differences between people who get Alzheimer's and those who are resistant to it are still largely unknown.
De Vries studied the brain tissue of people from the Netherlands Brain Bank who were resistant to Alzheimer's disease and discovered a number of processes that could explain why these individuals did not have memory loss. For instance, their cells responded differently to the damaging accumulations of amyloid-β and phosphorylated tau than the cells of Alzheimer's patients. Furthermore, perineuronal nets, protective structures surrounding nerve cells, were found to possibly play a role in protecting against memory loss.
New treatments
The researchers want to further investigate the findings from the brains of the resilient patients to better understand the underlying processes.
"Understanding the molecular processes in individuals resistant to Alzheimer's could potentially lead to new therapeutic strategies," says De Vries. Some of the data found could be used to find new leads for drug development against Alzheimer's disease.
De Vries defends his PhD research on 6 May.