Nature proposes a new view: only age-related, not disease-related amyloid

Many age-dependent neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, are characterized by amyloid abundance or plaques

"Until now, the presence of large numbers of intraneuronal amyloid filaments in human tissue has been associated with disease," said Bernardino Ghetti, MD, distinguished professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine.

The researchers studied the frontal cortex of 22 individuals with abundant amyloid deposits, including sporadic and hereditary Alzheimer's, and three neurologically normal individuals

"This finding encourages us to further evaluate the roles of fibrogenesis, like TMEM106B, in relation to human aging and other pathologies, and if they are found outside the nervous system," Ghetti said

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health

Journal Reference :

1. Manuel Schweighauser, Diana Arseni, Mehtap Bacioglu, Melissa Huang, Sofia Lövestam, Yang Shi, Yang Yang, Wenjuan Zhang, Abhay Kotecha, Holly J.