Nat commun: biomarker of vascular dementia revealed

February 2, 2020 / BIOON / -- vascular dementia (VD) is a neuronal injury caused by cerebral blood flow defects So far, the diagnosis of vascular dementia is very complicated, and neuroimaging methods (such as scanners) are only available when symptoms appear Due to the lack of more accurate methods, it is inevitable to be confused with other neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer's disease) Recently, a study by the University of Gottingen Medical Center (UMG) and the bellvitge Institute of biomedical research (idibel) described a new biomarker lipocalin 2 protein for this disease This protein is present in the cerebrospinal fluid Samples from four independent trial groups showed that patients with vascular dementia had higher levels of lipocalin 2 in their CSF In contrast to the current diagnosis, lipocalin 2 can effectively distinguish vascular dementia from Alzheimer's disease The study showed that only patients with vascular dementia showed this characteristic, while those without dementia had no such characteristic The specificity of the protein further highlights its potential as a biomarker To determine the role of lipocalin 2 in the brain of patients with vascular dementia, the authors studied brain tissue samples from the biobank hub-ico-idibel The results showed that the expression of lipocalin 2 in glial cells was different in vascular dementia or Alzheimer's disease Information source: a multicenter study identifications a new biomarker for miscellaneous dementias original source: Franc Llorens et al, cererospinal fluid lipocalin 2 as a new biomarker for the differential diagnosis of miscellaneous dementia, nature communications (2020) Doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-14373-2