Researchers may have found the cause of Alzheimer's disease by studying the tangles in the brain of dementia patients.
Scientists at the University of California-Riverside believe that the key to understanding Alzheimer's may be in the tangles found in the brain of patients with dementia.
If a doctor finds brain plaques and tangles inside grey matter cells, they can determine if a patient has Alzheimer's or dementia. One-fifth of people with brain plaques don't experience dementia, so the UCR researchers took a closer look at the under- studied tau protein in an attempt to understand why it tangles and deposits the way it does.
The professor compared isomers, or different ways a single molecule can be shaped, to human hands.
There are mirror images but not exact copies of each other. omers can have a handedness.
The tau proteins found in dementia patients were not normally made up of left-handed amino acids, but right-handed. The brain samples that UCR studied were only left-handed and were donated by people who had no dementia symptoms.
If you try to put a glove on your left hand, it won't work. It is a similar problem in biology, because left-handed gloves can convert into right-handed gloves that don't fit.
This revelation could have huge implications for Alzheimer's research, as Professor Julian and his team prepare to study how and why the brains of dementia patients don't "clear out" the defects as fast as usual.
It could lead to new treatments for a devastating disease.
Scientists at the University of California have discovered a potential cause of Alzheimer's disease.
Scientists may have found the cause of Alzheimer's disease.
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