About the episode
It’s one of the big questions surrounding the disease that we don’t yet have the answer to. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have now found something that might help explain it.
Most people with Alzheimer’s first develop damage — caused by protein buildup — in the memory area of the brain. This is usually followed by areas that drive thinking and planning.
To find out why this is the case in most cases, they studied the brains of 350 subjects in this study, comparing protein accumulation patterns with gene expression patterns. For example, they saw that areas where the APOE gene is most active also show significant protein buildup and tissue damage.
And that goes for other genes associated with Alzheimer’s. They also saw these in similar patterns in brain regions where damage first occurs.
Almost everyone carries a variant of those genes, but with some variants, such as the APOE4 gene, carriers have an even greater chance of developing damage. They also saw it in research.
It doesn’t say everything in full, for example there are also atypical forms in which other areas are the first to be damaged, but in the case of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, everything we can know about its origin counts.
Read more: Study provides clues as to why Alzheimer’s disease damages certain parts of the brain.
