Author: Stephen Johnson / Source: Big Think
- A new study on mice with Alzheimer’s disease claims to have identified the key epigenetic factor that leads to memory loss from Alzheimer’s disease.
- Using a drug treatment that blocked a particular set of enzymes, the scientists were able to restore memory functions in mice.
- Epigenetics is a relatively new field, but its treatments could someday change the way we treat disease.
In a new and potentially groundbreaking study, scientists used an epigenetic approach to identify the cause of and reverse memory loss in mice with Alzheimer’s disease, a success that could lead to treatments designed to preserve memory functions in humans.
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) emerges from both genetic and environmental factors, though the exact processes that cause the disease remain, mostly, a mystery. Still, it’s clear that aging leads to epigenetic changes that contribute to the disease’s development. (Epigenetics, which literally means “on top of” genetics, is the study of gene expression, or changes in gene activity that are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence. For a more detailed understanding of epigenetics, check out this easy-to-understand explanation from Dr. Axe.)
“In this paper, we have not only identified the epigenetic factors that contribute to the memory loss, we also found ways to temporarily reverse them in an animal model of AD,” senior author Zhen Yan, PhD, a SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Buffalo, told UB Today.
What’s the source of those epigenetic changes that lead to memory loss? The scientists say it’s the loss of glutamate receptors, which are crucial to short-term memory in the brain.
“We found that in Alzheimer’s disease, many subunits of glutamate receptors in the frontal cortex are downregulated, disrupting the excitatory signals, which impairs working memory,” Yan said.
The study, which…
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