{"id":8219,"date":"2020-12-08T16:04:46","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T16:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=8219"},"modified":"2022-03-02T11:56:37","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T11:56:37","slug":"researchers-suggest-an-alzheimers-protein-can-help-doctors-stage-the-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/researchers-suggest-an-alzheimers-protein-can-help-doctors-stage-the-disease\/8219\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers suggest an Alzheimer’s protein can help doctors stage the disease"},"content":{"rendered":"
Medical professionals can use tangles of the Alzheimer’s protein, named tau, to track the progress of Alzheimer’s in the human body, according to a study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis<\/a>, USA. Tau tangles are thought to be toxic to neurons, and their spread through the brain foretells the death of brain tissue and cognitive decline. Tangles appear as the early, asymptomatic stage of Alzheimer’s develops into the symptomatic stage.<\/p>\n The discovery of microtubule binding region tau (MTBR tau) in the cerebrospinal fluid could lead to a way to diagnose people in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease, before they have symptoms or when their symptoms are still mild and easily misdiagnosed. It also could accelerate efforts to find treatments for the devastating disease, by providing a relatively simple way to gauge whether an experimental treatment slows or stops the spread of toxic tangles.<\/p>\n Senior author Randall J Bateman, a professor of Neurology, treats patients with Alzheimer’s disease on the Washington University Medical Campus. Bateman said: “This MTBR tau fluid biomarker measures tau that makes up tangles and can confirm the stage of Alzheimer’s disease by indicating how much tau pathology is in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can translate this into the clinic, we’d have a way of knowing whether a person’s symptoms are due to tau pathology in Alzheimer’s disease and where they are in the disease course, without needing to do a brain scan. As a physician, this information is invaluable in informing patient care, and in the future, to guide treatment decisions.”<\/p>\n