June 21, 2018

expert reaction to investigation of metals in the brain, amyloid plaques and Alzheimer’s disease

A new study, published in Nanoscale, examines metals in the brain and Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr Sara Imarisio, Head of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK said:

“There are many theories around what triggers the disease processes of Alzheimer’s in the brain, and it is most likely to be caused by a combination of different factors. We know that the hallmark amyloid plaques found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease also contain other constituents, with iron being one of many. Exactly how much relevance each individual constituent has in the formation of plaques or progression of disease is not yet clear.

“While this study outlines an interesting research technique, it only looked at the brains of two people who died with severely advanced Alzheimer’s, and it very difficult to draw any broad conclusions about the disease from this research. Applying new and powerful research tools in a robust way is vital for advancing our scientific knowledge and future studies using this method may help us better understand diseases like Alzheimer’s.”

Prof Martin Rossor, NIHR National Director for Dementia Research, University College Hospitals, & Professor of Clinical Neurology, UCL, said:

“This is a technically elegant study that reveals abnormal forms of iron and calcium in the amyloid plaques of two patients with Alzheimer’s disease. There are many different proteins and metals that stick to the abnormal amyloid protein deposits and this study advances our understanding of these. It does not however prove that this is the mechanism by which brain cells die off in the disease. Much more work would need to be done to show that this is found generally in Alzheimer’s disease rather than only in two individuals and that the abnormal iron is causing damage rather a result of the disease itself.”

* ‘Nanoscale synchrotron X-ray speciation of iron and calcium compounds in amyloid plaque cores from Alzheimer’s disease subjects’ by Everett et al. was  published in Nanoscale.

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/alzheimers/

Declared interests

Dr Sara Imarisio: No conflicts of interest

None received.