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| Science & Technology |
| Scientists Reverse Memory Loss in Mice with Alzheimer's |
| 2014-04-25 |
| [An Nahar] Spanish scientists have for the first time used gene therapy to reverse memory loss in mice with Alzheimer's, an advance that could lead to new drugs to treat the disease, they said Wednesday. The Autonomous University of Barcelona team injected a gene which causes the production of a protein that is blocked in patients with Alzheimer's into the hippocampus -- a region of the brian essential to memory processing -- in mice that were in the initial stages of the disease. "The protein that was reinstated by the gene therapy triggers the signals needed to activate the genes involved in long-term memory consolidation," the university said in a statement. Gene therapy involves transplanting genes into a patient's cells to correct an otherwise incurable disease caused by a failure of one or another gene. The finding was published in The Journal of Neuroscience and it follows four years of research. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 My friend and business partner is on the downhill slide - she is in her 80s, and after having lived a very independent and slightly raucous life - she is on home hospice care. (Lung cancer being the primary diagnosis.) The thing she regrets and feels the most of all - is that her memory is shot. Long-term, short-term - all shot. She had a memory like a steel-toothed trap ... and it's now barely adequate to keep her remembering the plot of the books that she has recently read. |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2014-04-25 20:51 |
| #6 B bby, I think I see it down there ! V o |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2014-04-25 20:29 |
| #5 "made life hard", not lave. Maybe I'm already short a marble or two! |
| Posted by: Bobby 2014-04-25 15:33 |
| #4 My Mother had Alzheimer's - or a cousin thereof - and made lave very hard for my Father - because she was always wandering off. I am SO not looking forward to losing my marbles. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2014-04-25 15:32 |
| #3 One of the blessings of old age for me has been the grace of memories that fade. There are things you would rather not have full memories of. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2014-04-25 11:04 |
| #2 But what if you would just as soon forget ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-04-25 02:30 |
| #1 Flowers for Algernon? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2014-04-25 02:14 |