New leads on treating dementia and Alzheimer's
A new research study by scientists in Australia and the US provides an explanation for why clinical trials of drugs reducing proteins in the brain that were thought to cause dementia and Alzheimer's have failed. The study has opened the way for potential new treatments with existing drugs. Published online in the journal Human Molecular Genetics, the researchers assembled evidence from a wide range of human studies and animal models of dementia-related diseases to show that inflammation is a major cause, not just a consequence. They show that many genes linked with dementia regulate our susceptibility and response to inflammatory damage. " For decades, scientists have thought that dementia and Alzheimer's Disease are caused by protein aggregates forming in the brain. But recent clinical trials of drugs that reduce the aggregates have failed ," says project leader Professor Robert Richards, from the University of Adelaide's School of Biological Sciences....