New brain death pathway in Alzheimer's disease
In a new study published today, Arizona State University-Banner Health neuroscientist Salvatore Oddo and his colleagues from Phoenix's Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) -- as well as the University of California, Irvine, and Mount Sinai in New York -- have identified a new way for brain cells to become fated to die during Alzheimer's diseases. The research team has found the first evidence that the activation of a biological pathway called necroptosis, which causes neuronal loss, is closely linked with Alzheimer's severity, cognitive decline and extreme loss of tissue and brain weight that are all advanced hallmarks of the disease. "We anticipate that our findings will spur a new area of Alzheimer's disease research focused on further detailing the role of necroptosis and developing new therapeutic strategies aimed at blocking it," said Oddo, the lead author of this study, and scientist at the ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research...