University scientists Carnegie Mellon in the United States explained why it is very difficult to find effective methods for the treatment of neurodegeneration during Alzheimer’s disease. It turned out that the painting of neurodegeneration is more complicated than previously thought. This is reported in the article published in the journal of Journal of Molecular Neuroscience.
With neurodegenerative diseases, the destruction of neurons begins in one area of the brain and applies to others, causing an extensive loss of cerebral tissue. An important role in this is played by the pathogenic Tau-protein, which is collapsed incorrectly, but scientists still do not know how it is transmitted from the cell to the cell. It can be hypothetically localized in the affected focus to stop cognitive degeneration.
there were various models that explain the mechanism of distribution of TAU protein through brainstorms, but none of them explained the observed picture completely and contradicted the conclusions of the other. A new study showed that all of them are partially true and in combination with each other give a holistic model of how the cells absorb normal and dysfunctional tau protein.
It was believed that there is a specific receptor on the cell surface, which is responsible for the absorption of Tau. However, it turned out that in fact there are several ways to penetrate the conditionally pathogenic protein, which happens pretty quickly and takes a few minutes. At the same time, neurons do not disassemble which Tau-protein they absorb, which requires a more subtle approach to the treatment that does not have side effects. According to scientists, therapy should mean the use of several drugs is similar to how HIV infection is treated.