Breakthrough: Origin of Alzeimer’s Disease in the Brain Now Revealed

[image from huffington post]

Medical scientists led by Professor Scott Small, director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Columbia University in New York along with co-author Professor Karen Duff, also from Columbia University have pinpointed the origin in the brain where Alzheimer’s originally started.  In a recent scientific study, it seems the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) was the initial place in the brain where it all started. LEC was part of a region in the brain called hippocampus responsible for storing our long term memories.  It is where reduced metabolic activity occurred first.

                                               

Further study revealed that as we grow old the effect that started in the LEC area manifest like a domino effect spreading to other areas in the brain.  Alzheimer’s was characterized by the presence of deposits called beta amyloid plaques and tangles of tau protein.  Together these two proteins initiates the damage of neurons in the LEC and so Alzheimer’s proliferates the area and spreads to other parts of the brain.

The study was concluded after observing high resolution brain scans of 96 healthy individual adults aged over 65.  Of which 12 exhibited the symptoms.  The change in declining memory occurred when after the 12 volunteered individuals was free of dementia and the rest of the 84 has no manifestations of Alzheimer’s. It was further tested on mice and the same result happened.

This breakthrough on the discovery of the origin of the Alzheimer’s will aid on early detection of the disease on adults and treating it before it spreads thus preventing and curing Alzheimer’s Disease.  The study will also aid for potential new drug to cure the disease.