Scientists Identify Potential Early Breakdown Point in alzheimer’s Disease
BLACKSBURG, VA – Researchers at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech have received funding to investigate the earliest chemical changes that contribute to memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease, focusing on a specific brain circuit particularly vulnerable to the disease’s onset.The team, led by Shannon Farris and Sharon Swanger, believes an overload of calcium within mitochondria – the energy producers of brain cells – may be a key factor in the initial collapse of this critical neural pathway.
The research centers on the entorhinal cortex-hippocampus circuit, a region vital for memory formation and one of the first areas affected in Alzheimer’s. farris explained, “The connection between these cells is one of the first to fail in Alzheimer’s,” noting their team has observed unusually strong calcium signals in mitochondria near synapses within this circuit – signals visible even under a standard light microscope.
“Those kinds of signals are hard to ignore. It gives us a model where we can really watch what’s happening as things start to go wrong,” Farris said.The scientists hypothesize that this calcium overload disrupts the normal function of mitochondria, hindering synaptic transmission – the process by which neurons communicate.To test this, they will compare brain tissue from healthy mice wiht that of mice exhibiting Alzheimer’s-related pathology. The goal is to pinpoint early indicators of mitochondrial stress and dialog failures within the vulnerable circuit.
This research is supported by the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases Research Award Fund. farris and Swanger are both members of the Fralin biomedical Research Institute’s Center for Neurobiology Research and faculty in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology of the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary medicine.
Understanding the initial stages of this breakdown could pave the way for earlier diagnosis and the development of targeted therapies to prevent or slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, a condition currently affecting millions worldwide.
