New Clues to Down Syndrome-Alzheimer's Link [View All]

[SoCalDem]

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2006/706/4

New Clues to Down Syndrome-Alzheimer's Link

By Greg Miller
ScienceNOW Daily News
6 July 2006
Alzheimer's disease, a dreaded specter for many elderly, is far more likely to strike individuals with Down syndrome. Now, a study with a mouse model of Down syndrome may explain why. The work hints at potential targets for future drugs that fend off dementia--in people with Down syndrome and in the general population too.

Down syndrome is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21. It affects roughly 1 in 800 people, causing mild to moderate mental retardation and a range of other health problems, including early-onset dementia. By age 40, the brains of all people with Down syndrome develop the hallmark plaques and tangles of Alzheimer's and other signs of brain atrophy, autopsy studies have found. No one knows why this happens, but many researchers suspect this neurodegeneration has something to do with a gene called App. People with Down syndrome have an extra copy of this gene, which contributes to plaque formation in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. (The gene's normal function isn't clear).


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