From a U.S. study showed that the disease originates from the entorhinal cortex and then spread into other areas of the brain due to the complex neural network.
Alzheimer’s is a disease caused by the formation of aggregates are toxic to neurons in the brain caused by the accumulation of beta amyloid protein that forms when the amyloid precursor protein is segmented into smaller chunks. One of the first areas of the brain is involved in the entorhinal cortex, whose connections with the hippocampus are crucial for the proper functioning of memory, and then gradually spreads to other areas of the brain.
The study was conducted by the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and was directed by Lennart Mucke, who said: “It is not yet clear how the dysfunction of this area of the cortex contribute to mental decline or if the initial vulnerability creates the spread of the malfunctioning neural networks with which it is linked. For this, we used transgenic mice with mutant APP in neurons of the EC expressed its own, the entorhinal cortex.
“Our results confirm our hypothesis: the dysfunctions associated with Alzheimer’s disease spreads through networks of neurons and the EC is an important area of vulnerability early.
It will take additional studies to better understand how the events in this area brain are related to the disease, but we can assume that early intervention can have beneficial effects on the EC, perhaps even stopping the progression of the disease, “added Julie Harris, a researcher and first author of the study published in the journal Neuron.
