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Researchers identify possible new culprit in Alzheimer's plaques

A new study from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S) and Stanford University suggests that the malfunctioning of brain cells called astrocytes may be behind the accumulation of amyloid protein in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease, most researchers believe, is caused when small peptides called beta-amyloid accumulate in the brain. Everyone makes these peptides at all times during their life, but in people with Alzheimer’s, either too much is made or too little is degraded or both.

Lowering plaque protein in blood may offer treatment for Alzheimer’s

Agents that alter blood levels of beta-amyloid protein in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease represent a potential approach to treating the illness in humans that may be safer than the vaccine method of therapy, researchers report in a new study. Beta-amyloid protein is a component of the amyloid plaques that accumulate in the brains of people with Alzheimer?’s disease. Beta-amyloid is viewed by many researchers and clinicians as the underlying cause of the degeneration and dementia that characterize the illness. Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive, degenerative brain disease and the most common form of dementia. There is no cure.