Alzheimer's is innate?
Is Alzheimer's disease congenital?
(26.07.2010) Scientists have discovered clues that suggest that Alzheimer's is probably innate. Research has revealed new insights indicating that Alzheimer's disease is a consequence of a brain development disorder.
Leipzig brain researchers of the Paul Flechsig Institute for Brain Research at the University of Leipzig assume that Alzheimer's is possibly a congenital disease. "Alzheimer's seems indeed innate," says Prof. Dr. med. Thomas Arendt from the Department of Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Neurodegeneration. Hyperploid neurons are responsible for the fact that in patients with Alzheimer's disease the brain cells die in large numbers.
According to neuroscientists, the human organism can handle and tolerate a certain number of hyperploid neurons. In non-diseased human brain, these neurons occur in small numbers. However, if the number increases before the disease breaks out in the pre-clinical phase and time, it can no longer be balanced in the brain. Then the first minimal effects are noticeable. It seems then a "tolerance limit to be broken," explained Prof. Arendt. In the case of a seriously ill patient, the number of hyperploid cells again decreases. "A clear indication that they have died, because cells do not disappear just like that," said the researchers.
The researchers found the effects of the investigations on different samples from brains of people whose illnesses differed. Because in hyperploid neurons - in contrast to healthy cells - instead of two pairs of chromosomes, a large number of these genetic genetic carriers are present. In this development of stem cells to neurons, there is only one mechanism that causes such "false building blocks" to die.
From the research results, further important questions are now being developed, which the scientists want to investigate. "Why is a hyperploid cell so susceptible to cell death? Is this malformation also detectable in other organs than the brain? Are there any damaging effects on mother and child in pregnancy that lead to the developmental disorder of the brain?" However, there will not be any quick answers to that, and more extensive research needs to be done to get there. The study and other backgrounds were published in the scientific journal "The American Journal of Pathology". (Sb)
Picture: Rolf van Melis