Researchers from the University of Cambridge in England and Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts report that they believe Alzheimer’s doesn’t begin in a single area of the brain before spreading to other regions.
They say instead that by the time Alzheimer’s starts to grow, it is already present in multiple regions of the brain.
“The thinking had been that Alzheimer’s develops in a way that’s similar to many cancers: The aggregates form in one region and then spread through the brain,” Georg Meisl, PhD, first author of the paper and a researcher from Cambridge’s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, said in a press release.
“But instead, we found that when Alzheimer’s starts, there are already aggregates in multiple regions of the brain.”
Rebecca Edelmayer, PhD, senior director of scientific engagement at the Alzheimer’s Association, said the findings could have important implications for developing better drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
“This research is particularly informative for tau-targeting drug development. For example, a drug that blocks the buildup of tau in multiple regions of the brain may be more effective than a drug trying to prevent the spread of tau from cell to cell.”
