Brain Plaques May Affect Memory in Healthy People

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(  a first step in a cascade of events that ultimately leads to Alzheimer's disease )

A new study suggests that a brain-clotting plaque linked to Alzheimer's disease may cause cognitive decline even in healthy people, potentially setting the stage for the development of the devastating illness later in life. The findings don't point to any new treatment for Alzheimer's disease, which is incurable, and the detected decline in brain function is so small that affected people probably wouldn't notice anything in their daily lives.

Still, "I think they certainly are at higher risk of Alzheimer's," said study co-author Denise Park, A cognitive neuroscientist at the Center for Vital Longevity at the University of Texas at Dallas. She added that the test that turned up signs of the brain plaque could eventually help doctors figure out if someone's at risk for the disease long before they reach old age.

"Just because we don't have a treatment for Alzheimer's doesn't mean we'll never have one. What if we can develop this field enough that we can say things about your brain in your 40s and tell people, 'Here's a pill that you can take to slow [cognitive deterioration] down so it will never go to Alzheimer's?'" she said.

The plaque at issue is known as beta amyloid. It's a kind of protein that collects in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease along with stringy "tangles" that appear in neurons. Research suggests that the plaques and neurons kill off brain cells, leading to declines in mental function. Continue to read: hon.ch

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