Unlocking Alzheimer's Mysteries

Animalicious Cow writes "A shunt implanted in the skull of a patient with Alzheimer's could be the first treatment that actually fixes what's broken in the brain rather than simply masking symptoms of the debilitating disease."

Re:interesting

[PD]

Except that it's wrong. New brain cells can form in adult brains.

Unlocking...

[gregh76]

...what?

hm

[TaraByte]

it gives a new meaning to brain-drain.

Shunt

[PD]

Sort of like a brain bypass? har har

Seriously, the article talks about a protein that is the cause of the degeneration of brain cells. That's news to me. When was this protein discovered, and does anyone know of other ways of fixing the problem that people are working on? This is pretty cool. I think we might be on the verge of curing many diseases - alzheimers, thyroid imbalances, diabetes. But probably not the common cold though.

Re:Shunt

[AssFace]

must have been prior to '95 because I know all through while I was in college they were teaching it in neuroscience.

it is similar in many ways (but slower) to the prions that Mad Cow disease involves.

Ceribro-dialysis

[wowbagger]

This makes me wonder if you couldn't do something along the lines of hemodialysis - slowly feed in a synthetic ceribro-spinal fluid, and then drain off the contaminated CSF.

Any doctors in the house?

Re:Ceribro-dialysis

[brianjcain]

Sounds good to me. But it'd probably be called "encephalo-dialysis," right?

Re:Ceribro-dialysis

[Muhammar]

1) cerebro-

2) injecting anything into brain through catheter would cause HUGE risk of infecion.

They just milk the brain. The system is closed (outlet into stomach) for the reason 2)

There is another disease where this approach works: hemochromatosis.
Genetic defect in hemochromatosis patients causes iron overabsorbtion, which would gradualy kill them. Bleeding these patients regularly saves their lives.

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/hemochromatosis /

Now they even allow hemochromatosis patient blood to

Re:Ceribro-dialysis

[Op911]

I'd have to express a hefty degree of skepticism about the purported mechanism of this kind of device in treating Alzheimer's disease. As mentioned in the article shunts are successfully used in a condition known as hydrocephalus to reduce abnormal CSF pressure in the brain which can certainly cause a dementia-like picture that can mimic Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease isn't just caused by evil humors... we don't know the actual pathophysiology yet and are only beginning to work it out by analyzi

Yikes

[barakn]

I found myself wondering how the CSF was transported all the way from the brain to the peritoneum, and then I saw the diagram of the tube [wired.com] that runs underneath the skin.

"Wow, grandpa, you're ripped. Look at that vein in your pectoral muscle.... wait, that's not a vein! Gross!"

I hope they perfect the anti-amyloid vaccines.

Re: Yikes

[Bowling Moses]

Not going to happen. Vaccines work against viruses; Alzheimers disease is thought to be caused by the formation and accumulation of amyloid plaques between neurons. The amyloid plaque itself is a great big gamish of improperly folded proteins. Alzheimer's patients can't properly dispose of them, or perhaps the systems that do dispose of them are overtaxed and the problem is in why they form in such size (I don't work on Alzheimer's--the 2nd one's just a guess). A couple other diseases have at some stage

Re: Yikes

[barakn]

Perhaps you should have looked at the second page [wired.com] of the article. It briefly mentions the trial of a vaccine against amyloid. Unfortunately some people died, but the treatment may still be helping the other recipients in the study. Your characterization of a vaccine is incomplete. They also work against bacteria (Anthrax, Botulism, Cholera, Tetanus, etc.) and have been employed against cancer (with limited results to date). Antisera are commonly used against toxins from Black Widows, snakes, etc.. And

Re: Yikes

[Bowling Moses]

Hmm...I followed that link on the 2nd page, and sure enough, you're correct. Never really thought about it that way--when you vaccinate against a virus, you use "killed" virus or artificially synthesized virus protein coat to provoke an immune response. The same approach could work for other things as well. For bacteria or a eukaryotic pathogen I imagine you'd pick something it expresses in quantity on the cell membrane or something it excretes; for antivenoms I think the case currently is different. So

grandpa simpson

[Minn_Kota_Marine]

I have a son about your age.

Fascinating idea...

[dacarr]

Considering that the jury is apparently still out on aluminum contributing or causing alzheimer's disease [google.com], this is an interesting concept.

Better Symptomatic Treatment

[E. T. Alveron]

I disagree with the author's claim that this "fixes what's broken" in an alzheimer's patient.

From what I can tell, the shunt drains excess cerebrospinal fluid, which prevents (harmful) protein deposition. However it doesn't restore a healthy equilibrium of CSF production and consumption.

Re:Better Symptomatic Treatment

[p7]

The article does say that the shunt increases CSF production, by filtering out the offending proteins and sending them to the peritoneum. Obviously the article lacks some details of the process. For one it starts off saying that the shunt drains CSF from the brain a drop every minute. It then mentions how this process will increase CSF replenishment. My guess is that these drips are less than the increased CSF that removing the proteins provide.

sounds good

[brmic]

though i usually resent brain surgery, cause long term effects are usually disregarded in the excitement of the moment (Moniz's and Degas' lobotomy being a prime example) and the joy over apparent short term effects, this seems a minor problem with morbus Alzheimer. Still, the treatment at best will stop the accumulation of plaque in the brain, not restore the "original" state. The major problem with this is imho, that any successful temporary cure of symptoms will draw money from research into causes of m

Re:sounds good

[c.emmertfoster]

though i usually resent brain surgery

Yes, every time I recieve brain surgery I also harbor bad feelings...?

What's the verdict, Doc?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctor: I have two pieces of very bad news for you.

Patient: What's the first bit of bad news, Doc?

Doctor: I'm afraid you have terminal cancer.

Patient: Ok, so what's the other bad news?

Doctor: I'm sorry to say that you have Alzheimer's disease.

Patient: Heck, that's not so bad. At least I don't have cancer.

I came out here...

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

I came out here to post something, but I forgot what it was....