Why two new studies represent important breakthrough in Alzheimer’s disease research

Two different research groups have independently made the same important discoveries on how Alzheimer’s disease spreads in the brain. The groups’ findings have the potential to give us a much more sophisticated understanding of what goes wrong in Alzheimer’s disease and, more importantly, what can be done to prevent or repair damage in the brain.

Untangling the mysteries of Alzheimer’s

One of the most distinctive signs of the development of Alzheimer’s disease is a change in the behavior of a protein that neuroscientists call tau. In normal brains, tau is present in individual units essential to neuron health. In the cells of Alzheimer’s brains, by contrast, tau proteins aggregate into twisted structures known as “neurofibrillary tangles.” These tangles are considered a hallmark of the disease, but their precise role in Alzheimer’s pathology has long been a point of contention among researchers.