tau tagged posts

Medical researchers have used a 3D human neural cell culture model to show that the exercise-induced muscle hormone, irisin, reduces the level of amyloid beta deposits associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers who previously developed the first 3D human cell culture models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that displays two major hallmarks of the condition — the generation of amyloid beta deposits followed by tau tangles — have now used their model to investigate whether the exercise-induced muscle hormone irisin affects amyloid beta pathology.

As reported in the journal Neuron, the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-led team has uncovered promising results suggesting that irisin-b...

Whether enjoyed on its own or mixed into a latte, Americano or even a martini, espresso provides an ultra-concentrated jolt of caffeine to coffee lovers. But it might do more than just wake you up. Research now published in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry shows that, in preliminary in vitro laboratory tests, espresso compounds can inhibit tau protein aggregation — a process that is believed to be involved in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

Roughly half of all Americans drink coffee every day, and espresso is a popular way to consume it...

Reviving ‘awake neurons’ could be the solution to their sleepiness. The lethargy that many Alzheimer’s patients experience is caused not by a lack of sleep, but rather by the degeneration of a type of neuron that keeps us awake, according to a study that also confirms the tau protein is behind that neurodegeneration.

The study’s findings contradict the common notion that Alzheimer’s patients sleep during the day to make up for a bad night of sleep and point toward potential therapies to help these patients feel more awake.

The data came fro...

Existing drugs may offer effective treatment. Prevailing theories posit plaques in the brain cause Alzheimer’s disease. New UC Riverside research points to cells’ slowing ability to clean themselves as the likely cause of unhealthy brain buildup.

Along with signs of dementia, doctors make a definitive Alzheimer’s diagnosis if they find a combination of two things in the brain: amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. The plaques are a buildup of amyloid peptides, and the tangles are mostly made of a protein called tau.

“Roughly 20% of people have the plaques, but no signs of dementia,” said UCR Chemistry Professor Ryan Julian. “This makes it seem as though the plaques themselves are not the cause.”

For this reason, Julian and his colleagues investigated understudied aspec...