{"id":221624,"date":"2024-12-05T07:14:03","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T12:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=221624"},"modified":"2024-12-06T11:01:42","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T16:01:42","slug":"new-approach-could-help-alzheimers-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/12\/new-approach-could-help-alzheimers-research\/","title":{"rendered":"New Approach Could Help Alzheimer’s Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alzheimer\u2019s disease research is going through a paradigm shift. Unlike the dogma that the characteristic plaques in the brains of Alzheimer\u2019s patients are derived from a type of brain cell called neurons,\u00a0 UConn School of Medicine researchers provide compelling evidence that the field should carefully look at an entirely different kind of cell: oligodendrocytes.<\/p>\n

\"Amyloid
Amyloid plaques, composed mainly of b-amyloid peptide (A\u00df), are a key feature of Alzheimer\u2019s disease. They appear to be derived not only from neurons but also oligodendrocytes, a different type of brain cell. (Photo courtesy of Yan Lab, 2024)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oligodendrocytes are a group of cells found throughout the central nervous system. They are often thought of as providing insulation to the nerves that wire the nervous system. But oligodendrocytes have many other functions that are less well understood. They are recognized as critical in multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injuries, Parkinson\u2019s disease, and other brain troubles, but are hardly studied in the context of Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

But there are clues that oligodendrocytes are involved in the earliest stages of Alzheimer\u2019s, before symptoms become obvious. Paying attention to how oligodendrocytes interact with brain cells known to be vulnerable to Alzheimer\u2019s disease could reveal key points in the disease process, and potentially lead to new, more effective, therapies.<\/p>\n

UConn School of Medicine professor and chair of neuroscience Riqiang Yan, associate professor of neuroscience Xiangyou Hu, and their colleagues suggest a big data approach in the Nov. 17 issue of Molecular Degeneration.<\/a> Collecting data on oligodendrocytes in systems biology research\u2014those studies that look at large numbers of cells and try to piece together the relationships between genes, proteins, and the health of the overall system\u2014could be a valuable direction for identifying new gene targets for understanding Alzheimer\u2019s pathogenesis and therapy.<\/p>\n

\u201c Including oligodendrocytes in Alzheimer\u2019s disease and related dementias research, particularly in ongoing big data efforts, is essential for a comprehensive understanding of how Alzheimer\u2019s and related diseases are developing in patients\u2019 brains,\u201d Yan says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clues that a different than expected type of cell is involved in the earliest stages of the disease<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":200813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2460,2231,2407,2076,1868,2235,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1899],"class_list":["post-221624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty","category-health-well-being","category-lab-notes","category-research","category-meds","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-26 02:23:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221624"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222343,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221624\/revisions\/222343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/200813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221624"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=221624"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=221624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}