An investigation by the prestigious Mayo Clinic (USA) has concluded after examining more than 3,600 postmortem brains (of which 1,375 had confirmed Alzheimer’s) that the protein tau is the most responsible for the loss and deterioration of cognitive memory in Alzheimer’s disease. The study has been published in the journal Brain .
According to the results of the investigation, the amyloid protein, also characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, is not the main culprit of this serious disease but the tau protein . “For the last 25 years we have focused on the amyloid protein,” said Melissa Murray, co-author of the study. However, in the new work the scientists simultaneously analyzed the progress of both proteins, tau and amyloid, in several thousand postmortem brains of patients of different ages and in different stages of dementia, donated to science.
The examination of the data, thanks to the fact that the brain as the disease progresses “offers us a perspective of the cognitive impact of a broad spectrum on the severity of the amyloid protein and tau”, clarifies Murray and has allowed us to understand the changes in both with Over time. Thus the evolution of the tau protein causes instability in the neurons of the hippocampus, the memory center, which finally causes the death of neurons.
“Evidence suggests that the toxic tau protein spreads from cell to cell through the cerebral cortex, the outer part of the brain that is involved in higher levels of thinking, planning, behavior, and attention – functions that are disrupted in Alzheimer’s. However, the study shows that the accumulation of amyloid has a strong relationship with a decrease in cognition , but when taking into account the severity of the tau pathology, the relationship between amyloid and cognition disappears, indicating tau is the Alzheimer’s driver ”, sentence Murray.
These results reveal that a therapy aimed at stopping this toxic tau protein responsible for the disease should represent a new medical approach to the treatment of Alzheimer’s.
