Part of humanity living longer means an increased risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. It’s one of the reasons that research into this condition is so widespread: better understanding how to detect and prevent it could lead to scientific breakthroughs that could improve the experience of aging and make for better lives the world over. The latest development in this field of research revisits one of the things associated with Alzheimer’s: tau proteins that can accumulate in the brain.
A paper published this week in the journal Cell Press Blue explores a part of the body connected with tau proteins: cells known as tanycytes. The title of a paper published in 2023 dubbed these cells “the neuron whisperer,” and the role they play is crucially important to the brain’s overall health. As the authors of the Cell Press Blue paper explain, they looked into the way that tancytes transport tau proteins out of the brain.
These researchers found evidence of what they called “tanycytic degradation in the hypothalamus” in patients with Alzheimer’s. In other words, tancytes in the brain correlated with the presence of Alzheimer’s disease. That raises the question of whether this degradation is a cause or a symptom of the disease in question.
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A recent study looks promisingAs Vincent Prévot of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research — and one of the paper’s authors — told Nature‘s Rachel Fieldhouse, he and his colleagues did not observe tanycytic degradation in brain tissue samples taken from people without Alzheimer’s disease. As one of the experts who spoke to Nature pointed out, among the lines of inquiry that could follow from this is a significant one: is there a way to bolster tancytes in the brain using medication? The answer could have massive consequences.
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