For the longest time doctors and scientists around the world have struggled to understand and pin point the causes and effective treatment for Alzheimer’s. However, recently is has been discovered that a weak cleaning system of the brain cells in animals and humans is one of the main causes of Alzheimer’s, this breakthrough can lead to developing of new medicines and treatment for Alzheimer’s.
Research done by University of Copenhagen in Denmark, found that improving the cleaning system of the brain cells, also called mitophagy nearly removed the symptoms of Alzheimer’s in animals. New medicines and treatments are currently being researched which aim at directly targeting mitophagy.
According to Vilhelm Bohr “When the cleaning system does not work properly, there will be an accumulation of defective mitochondria in the brain cells. And this may be really dangerous,”
“At any rate, the cleaning system is markedly weakened in cells from both humans and animals with Alzheimer’s. And when we improve the cleaning in live animals, their Alzheimer’s symptoms almost disappear,”
According to the research Mitophagy breaks down defective mitochondria and reuses their proteins. The dysfunctional mitophagy is associated with low quality function of nerve cells. When the cleaning system does not work properly it does not reuse the protein which leads to accumulation of the proteins tau and beta amyloid in the brain, leading to cell death.
After the recent discovery the researchers show that after improving mitophagy, this accumulation slows down.
The researchers believe that their findings indicate that the cleaning process is a potential target for the treatment of Alzheimer’s, which should be further investigated.
