# Alzheimer's symptoms reversed in mice



## maxpayne_lhp (Jan 19, 2005)

News














Published online: 14 July 2005; | doi:10.1038/news050711-11 *Alzheimer's symptoms reversed in mice*

Roxanne Khamsi








*Switching off protein improves lab animals' memories.*





































Remember me? Turning off the expression of tau proteins can reverse symptoms of dementia.

_© Getty_Mice with memory loss have had their condition reversed, a discovery that should help refine the search for a cure for Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. 

The study also helps clarify the actual cause of dementia, which should give more focus to drug studies.

The brains of people with Alzheimer's and some 50 other forms of dementia are known to have certain characteristic features, including messy bundles of fibres in nerve cells called neurofibrillary tangles. But no one has been sure whether the tangles are a cause or symptom of dementia.

Mice engineered to massively overproduce a protein called tau tend to grow more of the tangles and display the same problems with memory and learning as humans with dementia. Researchers think that it is a certain version of the tau protein, rather than a simple over-abundance, that leads to the tangles. 

It has been speculated that these tau proteins, rather than the tangles, kill nerve cells.

*Untangling the cause*

Karen Ashe, a neurobiologist at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis, and her colleagues hoped to untangle this mystery.

*







To tell you the truth, I expected them not to be able to get better.







*








Karen Ashe
University of Minnesota Medical School














They trained mice to navigate a maze partly submerged in water, and watched for signs of memory loss. By the age of three months, mice genetically engineered to express 13 times too much tau protein couldn't remember the route to dry land, and had developed tangles in their brains. 

But surprisingly, when the researchers turned off the switch promoting tau expression, the mice began to gain back some lost memory. "To tell you the truth, I expected them not to be able to get better," Ashe says. 

The team reports in _Science_1 that the performance of the 'switched-off' engineered mice was roughly half as good as their normal counterparts, and twice as good as those that continued to overproduce tau. And their performance improved even through the tangles in their brains remained.

*Paired proteins*

The results indicate that some variety of tau proteins, and not the tangles it promotes, is responsible for dementia-related memory loss. 

But researchers are not yet sure which version of tau protein cause problems in the brain. That's the next step, says Ashe: "We have to figure out the molecular form of tau that is poisoning the neurons." That should give drug developers a better understanding of the molecules they should target.

Original: [email protected],com


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## maxpayne_lhp (Jan 19, 2005)

fish_doc, what do you think?  lol jk


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## Lydia (Feb 6, 2005)

i think we need to pm this thread to fish_doc so he doesnt forget to look at it

jk


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## shev (Jan 18, 2005)

It'll turn out like algernon.


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

I think that is a great thing. I bet there will be some use for it in the future. I have heard stories about people showing similar signs to those mentioned in the article. I dont remember where I read either article though. And who are you people and what am I doing here. Whats a fishforum?


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## maxpayne_lhp (Jan 19, 2005)

Hmmm... you're even more serious than we think... so do you remember any information of me? Hmmm... how about, well. when's your birthday?


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## shev (Jan 18, 2005)

I remember reading something about aluminum being the cause of alzeimers.


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

maxpayne_lhp said:


> Hmmm... you're even more serious than we think... so do you remember any information of me? Hmmm... how about, well. when's your birthday?


See it was all part of my undercover plot. I think I have now shown my expert spy skills. 


> I remember reading something about aluminum being the cause of alzeimers.


I have heard that to and plastic causes cancer. So now we cant buy any soda of any kind unless they go back to shipping it in glass bottles.


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

They had not evolved yet. LOL
But I did know the real flinstones
If you didn't know I do live in ROCKford and was born here.


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## shev (Jan 18, 2005)

everything causes cancer. I read milk and soysauce causes cancer.


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## Lydia (Feb 6, 2005)

fish_doc said:


> I think that is a great thing. I bet there will be some use for it in the future. I have heard stories about people showing similar signs to those mentioned in the article. I dont remember where I read either article though. And who are you people and what am I doing here. Whats a fishforum?


ROTFLMAO fish_doc!!!!!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## maxpayne_lhp (Jan 19, 2005)

>Look at mom next door<: Mom, I'm not gonna take any more milk in... a friend, well not one of my forgetful pals, says that milk can cause cancer!

lol, shev, will the death cause in the future be 100% of cancer?  I really think about that...


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## shev (Jan 18, 2005)

it'd be pretty ironic if milk caused bone cancer. im not even sure if there is such a thing called bone cancer.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Sure there's bone cancer. It's nasty stuff, too. It makes your bones shatter, and it is extremely painful. Elvis reportedly had it, which is why he took so much dope it killed him.


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## shev (Jan 18, 2005)

thats sad. theres a cancer for anything these days.

I saw a video of eye cancer surgery.


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## maxpayne_lhp (Jan 19, 2005)

Bone cancer... Ouch! If it's recovered at first stages, the arms/legs can be trimmed off to save the victim's life and that's considered lucky! Eww..


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## Lydia (Feb 6, 2005)

ewwww that would gross me out if someone talked about stuff like that at the table, lol


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## Lydia (Feb 6, 2005)

lol...my sisters boss tells her graphic stories sometimes about people getting killed with elctricity....so she always tells them to us when we are eating...its so nice of her...NOT!

wow we didnt get off topic at all, huh? jk


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## maxpayne_lhp (Jan 19, 2005)

About the off-topic posts I think it's ok in this forum. However, I'll ask Shaggy...


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## Shaggy (Apr 29, 2005)

Yes, you can have an topic you want here. Doesn't matter where it goes.. 

Like this post. We started with Alzhiemers and now we are talking about Cancer. LOL


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## maxpayne_lhp (Jan 19, 2005)

Thanks Shaggy now I know that I'm not modding the most touchy forum... well however I'll try to keep track with people's opinions and language.


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