New insights into Alzheimer's disease

Date:
June 17, 2020
Source:
Florida State University
Summary:
Researchers looking at mouse models found impaired functional
interactions between the hippocampus and the parietal cortex
during the memory replay period, which may yield new insights into
Alzheimer's Disease.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A new study by Florida State University researchers may help answer
some of the most perplexing questions surrounding Alzheimer's disease,
an incurable and progressive illness affecting millions of families
around the globe.


==========================================================================
FSU Assistant Professor of Psychology Aaron Wilber and graduate student
Sarah Danielle Benthem showed that the way two parts of the brain interact during sleep may explain symptoms experienced by Alzheimer's patients,
a finding that opens up new doors in dementia research. It is believed
that these interactions during sleep allow memories to form and thus
failure of this normal system in a brain of a person with Alzheimer's
disease may explain why memory is impaired.

The study, a collaboration among the FSU Program in Neuroscience, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Lethbridge in
Alberta, Canada, was published online in the journal Current Biology
and will appear in the publication's July 6 issue.

"This research is important because it looks at possible mechanisms
underlying the decline of memory in Alzheimer's disease and understanding
how it causes memory decline could help identify treatments," Benthem
said.

Wilber and Benthem's study, based on measuring brain waves in mouse
models of the disease, gave researchers a number of new insights
into Alzheimer's including how the way that two parts of the brain --
the parietal cortex and the hippocampus -- interact during sleep may
contribute to symptoms experienced by Alzheimer's patients, such as
impaired memory and cognition, and getting lost in new surroundings.

The team had examined a phenomenon known as memory replay -- the playing
back of activity patterns from waking experience in subsequent sleep
periods -- in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease as a potential cause
of impaired spatial learning and memory.

During these memory replay periods, they found that the mice modeling
aspects of Alzheimer's Disease in humans had impaired functional
interactions between the hippocampus and the parietal cortex.

The hippocampal formation is crucial for the storage of "episodic"
memories - - a type of long-term memory of a past experience -- and
is thought to be important for assisting other parts of the brain in
extracting generalized knowledge from these personal experiences.

"Surprisingly, a better predictor of performance and the first impairment
to emerge was not 'memory replay' per se, but was instead the relative
strength of the post-learning coupling between two brain regions known
to be important for learning and memory: the hippocampus and the parietal cortex," Wilber said.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, more than 47 million people
worldwide are living with the disease, a number projected to soar to 76
million over the next decade. It is currently the sixth-leading cause of
death in the U.S., affecting one out of every 10 people ages 65 and older.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Florida_State_University. Original
written by Amy Robinson. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Sarah D. Benthem, Ivan Skelin, Shawn C. Moseley, Alina C. Stimmell,
Jessica R. Dixon, Andreza S. Melilli, Leonardo Molina, Bruce L.

McNaughton, Aaron A. Wilber. Impaired Hippocampal-Cortical
Interactions during Sleep in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer's
Disease. Current Biology, 2020; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.04.087 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200617174812.htm

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