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Alzheimer's Disease - The Role of Tangles and Plaques By Liza Arwati |
| Thursday, March 12, 2009 |
Alzheimer's disease is a brain disorder that affects one person in the memory, thinking and behavior. This disease is a form of dementia that is found mostly in people over 65 years. Alzheimer's disease represents about 70 per cent of cases of dementia.
Alzheimer's disease was first reported by Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German doctor who specialized in pathology and neuropathology in early 1900. One of his patients, a woman names Auguste Deter has lost his memory and developed strange behaviors. When she died, Dr. Alzheimer decided to examine her brain to find out the causes of symptoms. He saw two differences that have come to identify Alzheimer's disease, some groups gumlike off the abnormal cells and a collection of other proteins within cells. That these plaques and tangles bent.
Tangles
Nutrients in the cell body must be transported to the nerve endings. Inside the healthy cells of the brain, long of proteins that serve as tracks for transport of nutrients.
When scientists examined the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease who had died, it was discovered that some of these transport proteins have been entangled. Neurons in their entanglements with the branches can not send their nerve endings nutrient molecules, and therefore could not communicate with other neurons. Tangles are found in the cerebral cortex of the brain, mainly in the temporal lobe structures.
Plates
The second thing I took note of Alzheimer's disease was the neuritic plaques. Neuritis plaques are made of a protein called amyloid, which is normally found in the body. In a person with Alzheimer's disease, the major protein of the sediments accumulate between nerve cells. These plates were later found to be composed of aluminum silicate deposits, as well as the protein amyloid.
Amyloid plaques damage the connection between neurons and interfere with their ability to communicate with one another. Plates seem to develop initially in the cortical areas in the temporal lobes, which explains why Alzheimer's patients develop memory loss profound.
Patients who suffer a more severe form of Alzheimer's disease have much more to the plates with mild forms. The brains of people unaffected by Alzheimer's disease may have a few plates.
Scientists are now seeking to discover why millions of plaques found in brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, while very few are found in the brains of older people healthy.
Amyloid plaques appear to trigger an inflammatory response. In the brain, inflammatory cells may cause injury simply by their arrival in and around the plates. The inflammatory process appears to destroy a large number of brain cells in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
Another contributor to Alzheimer's may be that the natural repair mechanism to rid the body of free radicals is flawed. Apolipoprotein E, which has the potential to protect membrane lipids against free radical injury, might be less efficient (in repairing the damage) variant in the brain of an Alzheimer's patient. Without adequate protection, free radicals that are brought to the swelling around a plate neurons can kill innocent people too close.
Antioxidants such as vitamin E, which aids in the absorption of free radicals, seems to ease the burden of Alzheimer's disease in some patients.
Alzheimer's Information |
posted by neptunus @ 2:43 AM  |
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