New Approach to Treat Alzheimer’s Disease Has Been Devised!

Till date Alzheimer’s disease is dreaded worldwide due to lack of treatment opportunities. Recently scientists from Columbia University Medical centre, Brandeis University and Weill Cornell Medical College have devised a new approach to treat Alzheimer’s. The findings for the same have been published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology. This new methodology has targeted the Retromer protein complex, which plays a vital role in brain signaling.

The amyloid precursor proteins (APP), cleaves into amyloid beta compounds which is neurotoxic. Retromer protein complex plays a role in steering away the toxic byproducts, amyloid beta, away from the cells after the cleavage of amyloid precursor proteins (APP). The researchers believe that this facilitates the development of Alzheimer’s disease. The team of researchers has developed a new class of pharmacologic chaperones than can stabilize the Retromer protein complex. The new chaperone had a molecule R55 added to its structure. When this molecule was added to the Retromer protein, and activity of the same was checked on the neurons in cell culture plates, they not only bound to the complex but also stabilized the protein mass. This new chaperone had increased retromer activity levels and lower amyloid beta levels.

In cultured hippocampal neurons, the insertion of chaperones with R55 exhibited less cell toxicity while lowering the amyloid beta levels and increased levels of retromer. One of the leading researchers in this team who is also the senior author in this paper, Dr. Scott Small, professor from the Boris and Rose Katz Institute, says that this technology will target the defect from cell biology aspect rather than molecular biology. Also this new approach will be convenient, safer and more effective than previously known method to treat neurological disorders. The rest of the team of scientist also includes senior coauthors, Dr. Gregory A. Petsko, Dr. Arthur J. Mahon, Dr. Dagmar Ringe and few more all of who have collaborated to devise this therapy pharmacologically. Once formulated as a drug this new approach will have vast potential to cure Alzheimer’s and other neurological symptoms.

PS- THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.

PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO VIEW MY BLOG-

HTTP:GSEASYRECIPES.BLOGSPOT.COM/

FOR INFO ABOUT KNEE REPLACEMENT, YOU CAN VIEW MY BLOG-

HTTP://KNEE REPLACEMENT-STICK CLUB.BLOGSPOT.COM/

FOR CROCHET DESIGNS

HTTP://MY CROCHET CREATIONS.BLOGSPOT.COM

Brain cleans itself during sleep: Experts

The brain cleans itself of toxic metabolic by-products while one is asleep and this cleansing could be the basic purpose behind the state of rest, say experts.

The brain’s unique method of waste removal, dubbed the glymphatic system, is highly active during sleep, cleaning toxins responsible for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders, revealed the US journal Science.

Researchers from the University of Rochester, New York, also found that during sleep the brain’s cells reduce in size, allowing waste to be removed more effectively, Xinhua reported.

“This study shows that the brain has different functions when asleep and awake,” said Maiken Nedergaard from the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Recent findings have also shown that sleep can help store and consolidate memories.

The glymphatic system acts like a plumbing system that piggybacks on the brain’s blood vessels and pumps cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) through its tissues, flushing waste back into the circulatory system, the researchers said.

The glymphatic system is a waste clearance pathway in the central nervous system (CNS) of mammals.

Researchers speculated that the glymphatic system may be more active during sleep and carried series of experiments on mice by tracking the movements of red and green dye throughout the brain. They found that large amounts of CSF flowed into the brain of the mice during sleep, but not when they were awake.

The glymphatic system was almost 10-fold more active in them during sleep, researchers said.

“These findings have significant implications for treating disease like Alzheimer’s,” said Nedergaard.

Amyloid, a protein implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, is a waste product removed by the system during sleep.

“Understanding how and when brain activates the glymphatic system and clears waste is a critical first step in efforts to potentially modulate the system and make it work more efficiently,” he said.

ps- this is only for information, always consult you physician before having any particular food/ medication/exercise/other remedies.

ps- those interested in recipes are free to view my blog-

http://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/

for info about knee replacement, you can view my blog-

http://Knee replacement-stick club.blogspot.com/

for crochet designs

http://My Crochet Creations.blogspot.com

Lasers may cure Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

Photo therapy may effectively treat neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, a new study suggests.

Researchers discovered that it is possible to distinguish aggregations of the proteins, believed to cause the diseases, from the the well-functioning proteins in the body by using multi-photon laser technique.

“Nobody has talked about using only light to treat these diseases until now. This is a totally new approach and we believe that this might become a breakthrough in the research of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,” said Piotr Hanczyc from Chalmers University of Technology.

“We have found a totally new way of discovering these structures using just laser light,” said Hanczyc.

If the protein aggregates are removed, the disease is in principle cured. The problem until now has been to detect and remove the aggregates.

The researchers now harbour high hopes that photo acoustic therapy, which is already used for tomography, may be used to remove the malfunctioning proteins.

Today amyloid protein aggregates are treated with chemicals, both for detection as well as removal. These chemicals are highly toxic and harmful for those treated.

With multi photon laser the chemical treatment would be unnecessary. Nor would surgery be necessary for removing of aggregates.

Due to this discovery it might, thus, be possible to remove the harmful protein without touching the surrounding tissue, researchers said.

These diseases arise when amyloid beta protein are aggregated in large doses so they start to inhibit proper cellular processes.

Different proteins create different kinds of amyloids, but they generally have the same structure. This makes them different from the well-functioning proteins in the body, which can now be shown by multi photon laser technique.

The study at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and the Polish Wroclaw University of Technology, was published in the journal Nature Photonics. 

ps- this is only for information, always consult you physician before having any particular food/ medication/exercise/other remedies.

ps- those interested in recipes are free to view my blog-

http://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/

for info about knee replacement, you can view my blog-

http://Knee replacement-stick club.blogspot.com/

for crochet designs

http://My Crochet Creations.blogspot.com

Chemical changes in brains may predict risk for Alzheimer's

A new study has identified biochemical changes in the brains of normal people who might be at risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

The study of 311 people in their 70s and 80s with no cognitive problems used an advanced brain imaging technique called proton MR spectroscopy to see if they had abnormalities in several brain metabolites that may be biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease.

They also had PET scans to assess the level of amyloid—beta deposits, or plaques, in the brain that are one of the first signs of changes in the brain due to Alzheimer’s disease. The participants were also given tests of memory, language and other skills.

The study found that 33 percent of the participants had significantly high levels of amyloid—beta deposits in their brains. Those with high levels of amyloid—beta deposits also tended to have high levels of the brain metabolites myoinositol/creatine and choline/creatine.

People with high levels of choline/creatine were more likely to have lower scores on several of the cognitive tests, regardless of the amount of amyloid—beta deposits in their brains.

"This relationship between amyloid—beta deposits and these metabolic changes in the brain are evidence that some of these people may be in the earliest stages of the disease,” said study author Kejal Kantarci, MD, MSc, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. The study was published in the August 24, 2011, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.