A new treatment may repair memory damage caused by Alzheimer's disease

, Aug. 2 (Xinhua Chen Yu) -- Researchers at Macquarie University in Australia have announced that they have found a gene therapy to repair memory damage caused by Alzheimer's disease in mice. The researchers hope the treatment could be used in clinical trials of Alzheimer's disease in the future.
pathological change in alzheimer's patients is excessive phosphate of the Tau protein in the brain. The researchers found that the gene therapy activates an enzyme called p38 gamma, which is naturally present in the brain. When activated, this enzyme regulates excessive phosphorylation of the Tau protein in the brain, thereby inhibiting the development of Alzheimer's disease. Animal studies have shown that even mice that are already in the later stages of alzheimer's disease's development can have most of their memory loss repaired through the therapy.
Russ Itner, a professor at Macquarie University who led the study, said: "When we first developed this gene therapy, we wanted it to inhibit the development of the disease, but we didn't think it would not only stop it, but also repair memory function that had been lost before treatment. Researchers
predict that the therapy could be used in clinical trials in Alzheimer's patients within five to 10 years. The researchers believe the treatment may also be effective against other neurodegenerative diseases such as frontal temporal lobe dementia.
no adverse reactions in the experimental animals during the study. The researchers are preparing to conduct human clinical trials in the next phase. The findings have been published in the international journal Neuropathology.