Alzheimer’s and dementia has had or
will have some effect on a person in their lifetime. For me, it was watching
both my grandparents slowly dwindle away and working with Alzheimer’s patients
at my internship this summer. I have seen how this disease can take a person
from a spritely, high functioning individual to someone who does not even know
their own name. A very real testimony for those who have not encountered Alzheimer’s
disease is featured in the New York Times
following the story of Ms. Geri Taylor who is still battling Alzheimer’s and is
actually in a clinical trial for a new Alzheimer’s drug. Hopefully, studies
like Dr. Tamar Gefen’s look into SuperAgers, a demographic of elderly people
whose cognitive abilities are as good as a 50 or 60 year old.
I have seen Alzheimer’s
disease and dementia take its stronghold on a number of people in my life. Namely,
my grandmother and grandfather on my mother’s side and currently my grandmother
on my father’s side. However, nothing prepared me for an individual that I worked
with at my internship at a local neurologist’s office last summer. During the
summer, I would perform Mini Mental State Exams (MMSEs), a common test for
memory and cognitive ability, on every Alzheimer’s patient that came into the
office that day. Even though I only interned at the office for a few months,
one particular gentleman sticks out in my mind. I remember that he was one of
the first and last patients that I performed an MMSE on. The sharp decline that
I saw in him in a few short months was shocking. He went from knowing a great majority
of the answers to forgetting his daughter’s name. Seeing my grandparents was
more of a gradual decline because I saw them almost every day. However, I did
not know how fast this disease can take away a person. Ms. Taylors account shows
the decline from a personal perspective. She talks about what aspects of her memory
are slipping away at any certain point of her life. It also shows the
perspective of her husband and children and what it is like for them being
caretakers.
In the article, Ms.
Taylor talks about how she is involved in a clinical trial for a new Alzheimer’s
medicine. However, in order to be able to participate in the trial, she had to
have significant beta-amyloid buildup and the gene ApoE 4, a gene specifically
liked to Alzheimer’s. Having the ApoE 4 gene gives a person a higher risk to developing
Alzheimer’s and is not a guarantee. Surprisingly, she had two copies meaning
she inherited one from each parent and her son had inherited this gene, which
she talks about how troubling it is for her to know that her son has a high
risk of developing the disease that has taken over her life.
Dr. Gefan’s study on SuperAgers
looked at the anterior cingulate gyrus in vivo and post mortem in SuperAgers,
cognitively normal, and individuals with Alzheimer’s in the study. The findings
supported the previous research that said the anterior cingulate gyrus was
thicker in SuperAgers than the other two groups, in vivo and post mortem.
Looking at the post mortem samples. SuperAgers showed lower Neurofibrillary
Tangles (NFT) that are seen in Alzheimer’s patients. Also, more von economo neurons
were seen in the anterior cingulate gyrus, most likely accounting for the
thickness. Hopefully, more studies can be done in the future on SuperAgers to
find out why they have more von economo neurons and less NFTs and will be able
to put those into practice with patients with Alzheimer’s and other cognitive
diseases.
Alzheimer’s is a disease that affects
everyone at one point in their life, whether it be them or someone that they
know. Hopefully, more medicines like Namenda and Aricept will be made in the
future that will better combat the disease. One way that medicines like this
could be made is looking into SuperAgers and how their brains and genes work.
Dr. Gefan’s study is a good starting point to understand how the SuperAger
brain is different and what we can take away from their brains to ultimately
help people that suffer from Alzheimer’s and Dementia so the disease will no
longer plague our loved ones.
Sources:
Gefen,
T., Peterson, M., Papastefan, S. T., Martersteck, A., Whitney, K., Rademaker,
A., . . . Geula, C. (2015). Morphometric and Histologic Substrates of Cingulate
Integrity in Elders with Exceptional Memory Capacity. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(4), 1781-1791.
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