Alleviating Alzheimer's

Remember these words: football, saucepan, envelope, charity. Now count backwards from 100 in steps of seven. Can you still remember those words? This exercise is part of a series of memory tests used to diagnose Alzheimer's disease, where memory is the first thing to falter. This is because the disease initially takes hold in nerve cells of the hippocampus – a region of the brain vital for making memories. Searching for therapies, researchers looked at activating proteins called LXRs in nerve cells. In a mouse model of the disease, activating LXRs increased brain levels of another protein ApoE (green), which is implicated in improved cognition. ApoE levels most dramatically increased in hippocampal neurons (red) as revealed by fluorescence microscopy. Other changes in the hippocampus included higher levels of stem cell markers and greater numbers of new cells. Targeting LXRs may therefore provide a multi-pronged means to slow disease progression.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Adrián G. Sandoval-Hernández and colleagues
• Grupo de Muerte Celular, Instituto de Genética Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS One, December 2015