Sight of Alzheimer's

What does Alzheimer’s disease look like? Unlike some physical conditions, like a broken arm, it can be hard to visualise mental illness. That’s just one reason why Alzheimer’s, which causes gradual decline in mental function, is hard to study. A new approach has visualised a whole mouse brain over several months as it develops Alzheimer’s, highlighting the accumulation of beta-amyloid, a substance that clogs the brain, leading to memory loss and damage. Seeing this progression will help researchers identify where the disease takes hold, and how it might be tackled. It revealed the memory structures that show the earliest susceptibility to accumulations, and the complex networks that develop over time. They were also able to show the beta-amyloid directly causing malfunctioning in part of the brain called the mammillary body, and observe a treatment inhibit its deposition – progress which could one day help keep brains clear of this damaging debris.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Video by The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, published on YouTube
• The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
• Video copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Communications Biology, October 2019