(Press-News.org) What if doctors could visualize all of the processes that take place in the brain during the development and progression of Alzheimer's disease? Such a window would provide a powerful aid for diagnosing the condition, monitoring the effectiveness of treatments, and testing new preventive and therapeutic agents. Now, researchers reporting in the September 18 issue of the Cell Press journal Neuron have developed a new class of imaging agents that enables them to visualize tau protein aggregates, a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease and related neurodegenerative disorders, directly in the brains of living patients.
In the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, tau proteins aggregate together and become tangled, while fragments of another protein, called amyloid beta, accumulate into deposits or plaques. Tau tangles are not only considered an important marker of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease but are also a hallmark of non-Alzheimer's neurodegenerative disorders, tauopathies that do not involve amyloid beta plaques. While imaging technologies have been developed to observe the spread of amyloid beta plaques in patients' brains, tau tangles were previously not easily monitored in the living patient.
In this latest research in mice and humans, investigators developed fluorescent compounds that bind to tau (called PBBs) and used them in positron emission tomography (PET) tests to correlate the spread of tau tangles in the brain with moderate Alzheimer's disease progression. "PET images of tau accumulation are highly complementary to images of senile amyloid beta plaques and provide robust information on brain regions developing or at risk for tau-induced neuronal death," says senior author Dr. Makoto Higuchi, of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan. "This is of critical significance, as tau lesions are known to be more intimately associated with neuronal loss than senile plaques."
The advance may also be helpful for diagnosing, monitoring, and treating other neurological conditions because tau tangles are not limited to Alzheimer's disease but also play a role in various types of dementias and movement disorders.
INFORMATION:
Maruyama et al.: "Imaging of Tau Pathology in a Tauopathy Mouse Model and in Alzheimer Patients Compared to Normal Controls"
Fluorescent compounds allow clinicians to visualize Alzheimer's disease as it progresses
2013-09-18
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Young stars cooking in the Prawn Nebula
2013-09-18
Located around 6000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion), the nebula formally known as IC 4628 is a huge region filled with gas and clumps of dark dust. These gas clouds are star-forming regions, producing brilliant hot young stars. In visible light, these stars appear as a blue-white colour, but they also emit intense radiation in other parts of the spectrum — most notably in the ultraviolet [1].
It is this ultraviolet light from the stars that causes the gas clouds to glow. This radiation strips electrons from hydrogen atoms, which ...
'Guns do not make a nation safer,' say doctors
2013-09-18
Philadelphia, PA, September 20, 2013 – A new study reports that countries with lower gun ownership are safer than those with higher gun ownership, debunking the widely quoted hypothesis that guns make a nation safer. Researchers evaluated the possible associations between gun ownership rates, mental illness, and the risk of firearm-related death by studying the data for 27 developed countries. Their findings are published in the current issue of The American Journal of Medicine.
Gun ownership in the US has been a hotly debated issue for more than 200 years. A popular ...
Fragile X syndrome protein linked to breast cancer progression
2013-09-18
Claudia Bagni (VIB/KU Leuven, Belgium, and the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy), has identified the way Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein or FMRP contributes to the progression of breast cancer. For this research the group of Bagni collaborated with colleagues from the VIB/KU Leuven departments of Bart De Strooper and Peter Carmeliet (VIB/KU Leuven), with Patrick Neven (UZ Leuven) and with several research centers and Hospitals in Italy and the UK. The researchers demonstrated that FMRP acts as a master switch controlling the levels of several proteins involved ...
Drivers of financial boom and bust may be all in the mind, study finds
2013-09-18
Market bubbles that lead to financial crashes may be self-made because of instinctive biological mechanisms in traders' brains that lead them to try and predict how others behave, according to a study part-funded by the Wellcome Trust.
The research offers the first insight into the processes in the brain that underpin financial decisions and behaviour leading to the formation of market bubbles. Publication of the study coincides with the five year anniversary of the infamous collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank in 2008.
A 'bubble' happens when active trading ...
Brain dysfunctions: Shared mechanisms in fragile X syndrome, autism and schizophrenia
2013-09-18
Several psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia, autism and intellectual disabilities share the same brain cell abnormalities: the contacts (synapses) between brain cells are poorly developed and not functional. Claudia Bagni and her group associated with the VIB, KU Leuven, and Tor Vergata University in Italy, in collaboration with leading laboratories in the Netherlands, France, USA and UK have unraveled how a single protein (CYFIP1) orchestrates two biological processes to form proper contacts between brain cells. Importantly, the researchers identified various ...
Dinosaur wind tunnel test provides new insight into the evolution of bird flight
2013-09-18
A study into the aerodynamic performance of feathered dinosaurs, by scientists from the University of Southampton, has provided new insight into the evolution of bird flight.
In recent years, new fossil discoveries have changed our view of the early evolution of birds and, more critically, their powers of flight. We now know about a number of small-bodied dinosaurs that had feathers on their wings as well as on their legs and tails: completely unique in the fossil record.
However, even in light of new fossil discoveries, there has been a huge debate about how these ...
Research team uncovers root cause of multiple myeloma relapse
2013-09-18
PHOENIX, Ariz. — Sept. 18, 2013 — Researchers have discovered why multiple myeloma, a difficult to cure cancer of the bone marrow, frequently recurs after an initially effective treatment that can keep the disease at bay for up to several years.
Working in collaboration with colleagues at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, researchers from Mayo Clinic in Arizona and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix were part of the team that conducted the study published in the Sept. 9 issue of Cancer Cell.
The research team initially analyzed 7,500 ...
Moderate exercising encourages a healthier lifestyle
2013-09-18
The obesity epidemic has massive socio-economic consequences, and decades of health campaigns have not made significant headway. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen are therefore pursuing the development of new, interdisciplinary methods for preventing and treating this widespread problem.
The subjects in the test group that exercised the least talk about increased energy levels and a higher motivation for exercising and pursuing a healthy everyday life.
"Obesity is a complex social problem requiring a multidisciplinary approach. In a new scientific article ...
Signal gradients in 3-D guide stem cell behavior
2013-09-18
Scientists know that physical and biochemical signals can guide cells to make, for example, muscle, blood vessels or bone. But the exact recipes to produce the desired tissues have proved elusive.
Now, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have taken a step toward identifying that mix by developing an easy and versatile way of forming physical and biochemical gradients in three dimensions.
Ultimately, one of their goals is to engineer systems to manipulate stem cells to repair or replace damaged tissues and organs.
"If we can control the spatial presentation ...
Services lacking for young gay black men
2013-09-18
EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Physical, sexual and emotional abuse among young gay black men is a pervasive problem, yet there remains a lack of social services and resources available to help them, a Michigan State University scholar argues in a new study.
The trauma they experience -- often at a young age -- is related to depression, substance abuse and high-risk sexual behavior, said Robin Lin Miller, professor of psychology.
"Young black men who are gay and bisexual have few resources available to them that are tailored to their specific needs and concerns, despite how ...