Do You Know About A Disease That Is As Lethal As Alzheimer’s?

As the world is shifting towards advancements in the healthcare technology, scientists are discovering new diseases every day. Many researches and experiments are being conducted in thousands of institutes and research centers only to find out new possible diseases which are altering human existence for centuries.

Moreover, these brains were then sectioned into groups by the researchers. They thought that dead brains were probably affected first by the protein they were interested in studying in Alzheimer’s disease known as TDP-43. In the process, they sectioned the region of the brains into slides known as the amygdala to those 342 cases. These 342 cases were then immunostained to see if the protein was present in the amygdala region or not. Scientists were surprised with the result showing presence of TDP-43 in 195 cases. To find where and how much protein was present in those 342 brains, they sectioned 14 additional regions that had thousands of slides for characterization.

Is the newly found disease as deadly as Alzheimer’s?

The similarity that blurs the lines inside a brain

Alzheimer’s is the accumulation of thin-flat proteins called beta-amyloid, and tangles, consisting of a different protein called tau in the brain. However, in the case of LATE, patients have a submission of a different protein, called TDP-43, which is misfolded in shape and deposited layer-by-layer inside the brain. The third protein (TDP-43) plays a major role in Alzheimer’s disease pathology. In fact, people whose brain is TDP positive are 10 times more likely to be cognitively dysfunctional at death as compared to those who did not have the protein. It shows that TDP-43 has the potential to overpower what has been termed as resilient brain aging. It means people can have the Alzheimer’s pathology, the two proteins-beta-amyloid and tau, and they can still be normal but missing of the third protein-TDP-43, is no way normal and can cause catastrophic changes in behavior.

To conclude, LATE is one of the common age-related diseases that can mimic Alzheimer’s disease. Both are complex and unpromising to cure but current approaches by neurologists, scientists, and healthcare policy makers are focusing on people to maintain mental health, manage behavioral symptoms, and exercise healthy lifestyle. In the coming years, researchers hope to develop therapies targeting patient’s genetic and cellular mechanisms so that the actual cause of the disease can be prevented.