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 Australian scientists along with
US experts have claimed that they are a step closer to create
a treatment for Alzheimer patients following a study finding a
link to abnormalities inside brain cells.
In a joint study, researchers at Queensland Brain
Institute and Havard medical School team found that when a
toxic protein builds up, it starves brain cells of energy,
causing them to die.According to ABC online report, in the study of over
three years, scientiests tried to unveil the mystery
surrounding Alzheimer's disease and a section of the brain
cell called the mitochondria, the part responsible for
metabolising energy, was analysed.
Perry Bartlett of Queensland Brain Institute said it was
the cell's engine room.
"The bigger these mitochondria are, the harder it is for
them to move up and down these long processes of nerve cells," he said, adding that "Nerve cells have processes up to a metre
long, they go from your brain all the way down." "So in order for them to be able to transport these
mitochondria to the place where the actions happening in the
nerve, if they're too big, they won't move," he said.
Bartlett said this is the first study to directly link
toxic levels of Tau, a protein in the brain that is related to
dementia, to abnormalities in the mitochondria which starves
them of energy and destroys brain cells.
"If they engineer these changed genes into fruit fly or a
mouse they find these tangles but they also found these big
mitochondria, so then they ask, well is it the size of the
mitochondria that's important?" he said.
"And as it turns out yes it is, because if you reduce the
size of the mitochondria, that neuropathology, that toxicity
goes away," he said.Researchers claimed that the latest development was a
promising step towards developing an effective treatment for
sufferers.
"What most people don't realise is dementia is a terminal
illness, so you have to get your head around that fact," she
said. |
