Research suggests that a specific stress response pathway in brain immune cells called microglia contributes to the nerve damage seen in Alzheimer's disease.
A sequence of stress signals among specialized clean-up cells in the brain could at last reveal why some immune responses can cause significant nerve degeneration that results in the loss of memory, judgement, and awareness. Blocking this pathway in mouse brains modeled on Alzheimer's prevented damage to their synapse connections and reduced the buildup of potentially toxic substances.
The researchers, led by a team from the City University of New York (CUNY), believe this pathway – called the integrated stress response (ISR) – causes brain immune cells called microglia to become dysfunctional. We set out to answer what are the harmful microglia in Alzheimer's disease and how can we therapeutically target them,' Finding around twice as many stressed microglia in brains with the condition compared with healthy brains, the researchers went on to show how the ISR pathway was causing these stressed microglia to release harmful lipids into the brain's tissues. As is often the case with Alzheimer's research, a better understanding of how the disease operates can also give scientists more ideas for treatment. If treatments that block ISR can work safely and effectively in humans, the method could potentially slow the chaos that Alzheimer's causes in our own brain. 'Targeting this pathway may open up new avenues for treatment by either halting the toxic lipid production or preventing the activation of harmful microglial phenotypes.' that often drive dementia could be triggering the ISR to begin with, meaning that these signals are both a result of Alzheimer's and a reason for its further progression. Further studies should make this relationship clearer, now that we have a better idea of how the ISR pathway and dark microglia act in the brain – and from there, hopefully, new approaches to therapies. 'Such treatments could significantly slow or even reverse the progression of Alzheimer's disease, offering hope to millions of patients and their families,
ALZHEIMER's DISEASE BRAIN CELLS IMMUNE RESPONSE NEURODEGENERATION TREATMENT
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