FINALLY, SOME GOOD NEWS about Alzheimer’s disease. The American Academy of Neurology has awarded its 2006 Potamkin Prize-often called the Nobel Prize of neurology-to three researchers whose Alzheimer’s work was called “phenomenal” this month by Roger N. Rosenberg, editor of the Archives of Neurology. That work has shown that the so-called plaques, tangles and brain-cell destruction that are Alzheimer’s hallmarks can be altered and even rolled back.
The researchers, Bradley Hyman, of Harvard; Karen Ashe, of the University of Minnesota; and Karen Duff, of New York University, have put genes known to cause human Alzheimer’s into mice to create animal models of the disease, then modified the symptoms in various ways, opening up what Rosenberg called “a whole new conceptualization of potential therapies for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.”
Hyman’s group developed a technique called near-infrared microscopy that he says “allows us to watch plaques and tangles in the living brain and directly observe the effects of therapeutic interventions.” They actually saw the plaques ebb when the mice were given antibodies against the plaques. Ashe’s group has apparently isolated the toxic component in the plaque that’s the real cause of memory loss. And more startling, by impeding the function of an Alzheimer’s-related gene they’ve shown that memory and cognitive loss can be reversed. The Duff group has found that giving the mice lithium chloride can decrease brain degeneration if started early enough in the disease. Harvard’s John Growdon says the trio’s work “will have a direct effect on developing treatments and finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease.”
