Breakthrough Research Paves the Way For Alzheimer’s Reversal Treatment; Here's How

American scientists investigating Alzheimer's disease have made a key breakthrough, identifying a major cellular process that drives the most common cause of dementia.

Researchers from the Advanced Science Research Center at the City University of New York have discovered the critical mechanism that links cellular stress in your brain to the progression of Alzheimer’s. Scientists say they are marking it as a promising target for drug treatments aiming to slow, or even reverse, the disease’s development.

According to the study published in the journal Neuron, your brain's primary immune cells—known as microglia - a key role in protecting the brain from this degenerative disease. Microglia are also known as your brain's first responders; however, scientists say these same cells play a double-edged role. While some can protect your health, others can even worsen neurodegeneration, advancing Alzheimer's.

According to scientists, there has to be an understanding between these cells for more clarity, said Professor Pinar Ayata, the study's principal investigator. "We set out to answer what the harmful microglia are in Alzheimer's disease and how we can therapeutically target them. We pinpointed a novel neurodegenerative microglia phenotype in Alzheimer's disease characterized by a stress-related signaling pathway," he added.

The research team discovered that activation of this stress pathway, known as the integrated stress response or ISR, leads to microglia producing and releasing toxic lipids.

Toxic microglia damage neuron cells, which are extremely important for brain function and are most impacted in Alzheimer's. However, scientists found that blocking the stress response or the formation of lipids reversed symptoms of Alzheimer's in preclinical models using mice.

Scientists say they examined postmortem brain tissues from Alzheimer's patients using electron microscopy – which uses a beam of electrons to create detailed images of very tiny objects, much smaller than what we can see with regular microscopes.

They found an accumulation of dark microglia—a subset of these cells associated with cellular stress and neurodegeneration—in disease sufferers' brain tissues. Levels of these cells were twice as high in Alzheimer's patients as they were in the brains of healthy people.

"These findings reveal a critical link between cellular stress and the neurotoxic effects of microglia in Alzheimer's disease. Targeting this pathway may open up new avenues for treatment by either halting the toxic lipid production or preventing the activation of harmful microglial phenotypes,” said Anna Flury, a member of Prof Ayata's lab and co-lead of the study.

The team said the study would help develop drugs that target specific microglial populations or mechanisms triggered by stress.

Get Latest News Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from Health and around the world.