Researchers from the ALBA Synchrotron and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have analysed with synchrotron light different Alzheimer’s aggregates, their location and their effect in cultivated neuronal cells.
Results, published in Analytical Chemistry, pave the way to better understand the development of this disease that affects more than 30 million people worldwide.
Memory loss, communications’ difficulties, personality and behaviour changes, orientation problems … Unfortunately, these symptoms are widespread in our society, since 30 million people worldwide and 1.5 in Spain suffer from the effects of Alzheimer’s, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Spanish Confederation of Family Members of Alzheimer’s and other dementias patients (CEAFA), respectively. Alzheimer’s is the most important cause of dementia and is described as a multifactorial disease that leads to neuronal cell death. Nowadays, there is no effective treatment to fight against or to prevent it.
When a person has Alzheimer’s, amyloid plaques are generated inside his brain. They are made of deposits or aggregates of the amyloid beta peptide. This peptide – which comes from a protein that is necessary for cellular functioning – tends to be aggregated by adopting different sizes and morphologies, depending on the physical and chemical conditions around it. Although it is already known that the presence of the beta amyloid peptide, together with other factors such as oxidative stress, play a key role in the onset and development of the Alzheimer’s disease, it is not still clear what causes the disease and what the consequences are.