Many people would choose to live a shorter life if it meant living a high quality and healthy life for the entire duration. Alzheimer’s disease takes this away from millions in the United States and even more globally. The thought of not being able to remember our life experiences, our loved ones, and even simple everyday tasks is truly brutal and a force to be reckoned with. During his talk, Dr. Roberto Fernandez-Romero explored the relationship this disease has with aging. He explains that he wants to find new markers for the disease because it’s important to learn about the path of physiology when studying a disease. This neurodegenerative disease doesn’t affect the entire brain equally. It affects particular areas of the brain that are more specific to the disease, lot of which have to do with memory. With this we can see the progressive gradual decline of cognitive function. He emphasizes that over 5 million people in the United States alone that suffer from this disease currently and that this number will probably rise to 15 million within the next few years. What’s even more shocking is that of 10 the leading causes of death, Alzheimer’s is the only one that cannot be prevented, cured, or effectively treated.
In the article, Alzheimer's from a New Angle, Alice Price explains how “Globally, nearly 50 million people are living with dementia, most of which is caused by Alzheimer's, and absent effective drugs or other interventions, that number is expected to double every 20 years.” (Park, 2016) So, what is the source of all this? Dr. Fernandez-Romero went into detail on how the proteins Beta-Amyloid and Tau maintain microtubule structure and transport, but when these proteins start to malfunction, they form plaque in the brain. This plaque then ends up blocking transmission at the synapses, which results in the alteration of activity in the brain. (Fernandez, 2012) It’s important to ask what causes the changes in amyloid and tau, but at the moment we aren’t sure why these proteins change and how they change. Dr. Frank Longo, like many others is also trying to take steps in the right direction in hopes of a cure for Alzheimer’s. As the chairman of the neurology department at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Longo specializes in memory disorders and regularly sees patients whose brains are slowly diminishing. Since the year 2000 over 200 drugs have been tested in hopes of curing the disease, but none have been successful. “My biggest frustration is that we've cured Alzheimer's in mice many times. Why can't we move that success to people?" Dr. Longo says. (Park, 2016) It’s a step in the right direction that scientists have figured out how to eliminate the amyloid plaques in animals, but doing this in humans has really been a brainteaser.
In his research, Dr. Fernandez-Romero had subjects perform driving tests where they had to remember how to get to and from particular locations. His goal was to “identify distinguishing effects on neural mechanisms related to driving and navigation”. (Fernandez, 2012) Parietal lobe function and the perceptual basis of navigation are an ideal model to study aging and Alzheimer’s disease. He explained that as a clinician, one of the biggest problems that he sees with his patients is related to driving. Patients that have early stages of Alzheimer’s sometimes don’t know that they have these symptoms and having to tell them they can’t drive anymore is very difficult. Not every city has public transportation like Chicago. He said giving them data helps them accept that they may need to give up this life skill in order to stay safe. It’s safe to say that part of the problem here includes figuring out when older people need to be screened for the disease, because obviously everyone isn’t taking part in clinical research that shows if they’re in the clear to operate motor vehicles, or something similar.
While Dr. Fernandez-Romero and many others look into various details to help Alzheimer’s patients live better lives, Dr. Longo started a drug company, which is now on phase II of the clinical trials for a new drug that is very promising. This drug is noteworthy compared to others, because it worked on the mice and confronts Alzheimer's in a different way than any drugs that came before it. The new drug, LM11A-31, takes a much less traditional approach to solving the problem. Rather than going after every source of amyloid, the goal is to “keep brain cells strong, protected against neurological onslaughts, whether they're the effects of amyloid or other factors involved in Alzheimer's”. (Park, 2016) Dr. Longo emphasizes that he, along with many others are working to find ways to eliminate the “amyloid plaques that start to accumulate like molecular garbage in certain corners of the Alzheimer's-afflicted brain” (Parks, 2016).
Some people may believe that most people, who live a long life, will suffer from some form of dementia, but the hope is that this notion can be wiped out. While some of us wait on a miracle, it’s reassuring to know that people like Dr. Fernandez-Romero are finding ways to help people deal with this and people like Dr. Frank Longo are going off the unbeaten path to look at untraditional approaches for the cure. Hopefully, soon people won’t need to choose the option of living a shorter quality filled lifestyle, and will instead be able to live a long life-span filled with top quality health.
References
Fernandez, R., & Duffy, C. J. (2012). Early Alzheimers disease blocks responses to accelerating
self-movement. Neurobiology of Aging,33(11), 2551-2560. doi:10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2011.12.031
Park, A. (2016, February 11). Alzheimer's From a New Angle. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from
http://time.com/4217067/alzheimers-from-a-new-angle/
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