Discovering the Key to Escaping Cognitive Decline: Hope for Alzheimer’s Prevention

2023-10-09 09:00:00

According to a study, an abundance of specific neurons makes it possible to escape cognitive decline and therefore Alzheimer’s disease. This discovery might allow us to better understand the disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is a profound illness, affecting 1.2 million people in France. The projections are no more reassuring, estimating that 9.6% of those over 65 and 6.2% of the working population might be affected by 2050, according to the survey by the Overcoming Alzheimer’s Foundation. In addition to the patients, this syndrome causes suffering for families and loved ones, seeing a loved one lose their memory and suffer more and more cognitive difficulties.

Alzheimer’s results in neurological deterioration, which can lead to neuronal death. Two lesions occur in the brain: the beta-amyloid and tau proteins necessary for brain functioning are less and less supplied. As a result, the first symptoms can appear such as aphasia (language disorder), apraxia (difficulty performing certain everyday gestures) and agnosia (loss of recognition of people or objects) as explained the Ministry of Health.

Cells to treat Alzheimer’s?

But a solution might soon be found to fight this scourge. According to Nature, scientists have identified two types of cells capable of reducing the risk of dementia in the elderly. Two neurobiologists and a computer scientist studied 427 brains of people who died with three types of brain conditions: some had advanced Alzheimer’s disease, others had some mild cognitive impairment, and the last had no sign of some brain disease.

However, in the latter, two cells were much more present than in Alzheimer’s patients. First of all, those allowing the secretion of reelin, a type of protein, the lack of which we know can cause diseases such as schizophrenia, or even autism. Then somatostatin, an essential hormone that regulates the process of the entire human body.

Essential inhibitory neurons

These two cells are part of so-called inhibitory neurons. By nature, these help avoid nerve impulses. They oppose so-called excitatory neurons, which stimulate the brain. However, if until now research on Alzheimer’s disease has focused mainly on the second type of neurons, the so-called inhibitory cells might also suffer from this syndrome. The loss of these essential neurons would explain the seizure attacks from which people affected by Alzheimer’s can suffer: excessive neuronal discharge occurs, because the nerve impulse is no longer managed.

The secretion of reelin and somatostatin would therefore be directly impacted by this neurodegenerative syndrome. The challenge of scientists’ work now remains to be able to protect these cells which are so important for our brain. But for this, we will have to wait for progress in cellular sequencing technology, making it possible to discover the secrets of said cells.

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