Studying a lethal disease

Interesting news the other day on Alzheimer’s disease. Sharing from the New York Times: “Could it be that Alzheimer’s disease stems from the toxic remnants of the brain’s attempt to fight off infection?

“Provocative new research by a team of investigators at Harvard leads to this startling hypothesis, which could explain the origins of plaque, the mysterious hard little balls that pockmark the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. …The Harvard researchers report a scenario (in which) a virus, fungus or bacterium gets into the brain, passing through a membrane — the blood-brain barrier — that becomes leaky as people age. The brain’s defense system rushes in to stop the invader by making a sticky cage out of proteins, called beta amyloid. The microbe, like a fly in a spider web, becomes trapped in the cage and dies. What is left behind is the cage — a plaque that is the hallmark of Alzheimer’s.”