- Science
- Not Exactly Rocket Science
Fishing expedition reveals unexpected link between Alzheimer’s and prion diseases
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia in the world, affecting more than 26 million people. Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (CJD), another affliction is far less common, but both conditions share many of the same qualities. They are fatal within a few years of diagnosis, they are incurable and they involved the crippling degeneration of the brain’s neurons. Now, a group of Yale researchers have discovered that the two diseases are also linked by a pair of critical proteins.
Look into the brain of someone with Alzheimer’s disease and you will see large, insoluble “plaques” sitting between nerve cells. They consist of a protein fragment (or “peptide”) called amyloid-beta, accumulating in its thousands. These plaques are a hallmark of the disease,