Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most cruel conditions that a person can develop. And even with recent advances, there is only so much feasible after its symptoms appear. Research this week may emphasize a critical and previously missed factor pushing the disease, one that could even lead to new treatments.
Scientists at Harvard Medical School led the study, issued Wednesday in nature. Studying samples and mice of human brains, they have found evidence that our brains naturally contain the element lithium – and that its deficiency can help explain the damage caused by Alzheimer. The findings are well supported and may have discovered an important aspect of the neurological disorder, an external expert told Gizmodo.
The study researchers “have done detailed and well -designed studies to explore how low lithium levels are associated with [Alzheimer’s disease] At the diagnostic, protein, cellular and gene levels, “said Timothy Chang, a neurologist at the University of California, Los -English, which was not involved with the study. Chang is also director of the California Alzheimer’s disease center at UCLA.
People’s brain with Alzheimer’s are different in many ways by others. In particular, they contain high levels of failed amyloid beta and Tau, two proteins, which usually have important functions. But these are not the only changes seen in Alzheimer. And it was while we explored these other changes that the Harvard researchers made their discovery.
With the help of existing projects that collected samples of posthumous tissues, they compared levels of about 30 metals in the brain of people who died according to various stages of cognitive health. The only major difference they found was with lithium. People with cognitive healthy brains had relatively high levels of lithium, while those with Alzheimer had much lower levels. Seriously, this loss of lithium was apparent even in people who only experienced mild memory problems before dying.
The researchers also studied healthy mice and genetically modified mice that develop a version of Alzheimer’s disease. When they exhausted a lithium from these mice, it seemed to accelerate the construction of a sick amyloid beta and Tau in the brain, along with a memory decline. They have also found evidence that this loss is caused by amyloid beta -plaques binding to the lithium of the brain and that this loss of lithium seems to negatively affect all the main cell types of the brain.
Although there was some limited research suggesting A possible relationship between lithium and Alzheimer, the authors say that theirs is the first to show that our brains naturally carry it. What is more, their findings suggest that lithium is essential for good brain health and that its absence is key to the development of Alzheimer’s.
“This is the first study that suggests that the lack of lithium could contribute to Alzheimer’s illness. consequences of lithium -deficiency in the brain. “
The implications of this study, though still early, could certainly be dramatic. Yankner and his team were also able to identify a lithium-based compound that was not so easily linked by Amiloida Beta. And when they gave mice (older healthy mice and mice with Alzheimer’s) this compound, it seemed to prevent the damaging brain changes and memory loss usually inevitable with the neurodegenerative condition. Even the best amyloid based Treatments For Alzheimer it is available today, by contrast, only modestly delays its progress.
Other forms of lithium are used in medicine to treat some mental health disorders, particularly depression. But these versions require high doses to function as intended and come with many side effects as a result. The compound of the team, however, required a much lower dose to be effective in the mice, and no sign of toxicity was observed at all.
“Further clinical studies in humans would be necessary to assess whether the correct type and dose of lithium can prevent or slow down Alzheimer’s disease,” Chang noted.
Yankner and his team are now progressing with the research needed to show their composition (or something similar) can be safely tested in human clinical trials. But even before then, the discovery of the team could pay in other ways. It may be possible to sift the risk of Alzheimer in the future by measuring the lithium levels of people, e.g. And there are still many mysteries to loosen lithium and its role in brain health.
“As a neuroscientist, I am excited about exploring the physiology of lithium in the brain,” Yankner said. “I suspect we have just scraped the surface of what will be some very interesting biology.”
