Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine at USC have made another step in the fight against Alzheimer’s Disease, a type of dementia that causes memory loss and cognitive dysfunction.
Our brains are protected by something called the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB), a semi-permeable membrane that protects the brain from toxins, bacteria, hormones, neurotransmitters, and other harmful materials. Using high resolution MRI scans, researchers were able to discover that the BBB naturally breaks down as we age, starting in the hippocampus, the area of the brain related to learning and memory. The breakdown of the BBB creates leakages in the brain’s blood vessels, and it was found that people with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s had significantly more leakages than cognitively healthy people of the same age. This indicates that the degeneration of the BBB is directly related to the break down of the hippocampus of the brain (as seen in the image above), one of the major hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease.
Image Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Library
The researchers also analyzed the Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSF), a clear fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord like a protective cushion, of subjects with Alzheimer’s Disease. They found that there was a dramatic increase in the amount of proteins associated with the injury of pericytes, cells that surround the blood vessels in the BBB and help prevent leakages in the BBB. The increase in the number of proteins is further evidence of the breakdown of the BBB, and further supports the idea that BBB breakdown is more significant in those suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s. The image below highlights the blood brain barrier and how it tightly surrounds the vessels of the brain.
This research adds another potential risk factor, something that increases a person’s chance of disease, for the development of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and suggests a potential way for early diagnosis of these diseases: brain scans may be able to detect leakages early on, allowing those at risk of developing Alzheimer’s to begin treatment. Further research will study whether it is possible to repair leakages in the BBB, and in doing so, possibly treat Alzheimer’s disease.
Featured Image Source: AGE by empty007
