microglia tagged posts

sTREM2 cerebrospinal fluid levels are a potential biomarker for microglia activity in early-stage Alzheimer’s Disease and associate with neuronal injury markers

This secreted marker molecule, which can be measured from CSF taps, may provide clinicians with a rapidly detectable biomarker for the transition from preclinical Alzheimer’s disease to cognitive impairment and progression to full dementia. Such is the conclusion of a multi-center study on a large group of human patients, published online in EMBO Molecular Medicine.

Alzheimer’s disease, an increasing problem in today’s aging populations, is characterized by amyloid peptide plaques and tau protein aggregates in nerve cells...

In recent years, generating see-through tissue – a process called optical clearing -has become a goal for many researchers in life sciences because of its potential to reveal complex structural details of our bodies, organs, and cells – both healthy and diseased -when combined with advanced microscopy imaging techniques.

“The usefulness of optical clearing techniques can be measured by their ability to gather accurate 3D structural information that cannot be readily achieved through traditional 2D methods,” explains Atsushi Miyawaki. “Here, we achieved this goal using a new procedure, and collected data that may resolve several current issues regarding the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease...