A Few More Mammalian Species Found to Exhibit Amyloid- β and Tau Pathology

The primary challenge in Alzheimer's disease research has long been that short-lived laboratory species do not naturally exhibit any of the features of the condition. Thus all mouse models of the condition are highly artificial genetic constructs, and potential treatments and relevant mechanisms in these models have a high chance of being irrelevant to Alzheimer's disease as it exists in humans. Up until fairly recently it could be argued that humans were in fact the only species to exhibit full blown Alzheimer's disease, involving a lengthy increase in amyloid-β aggregation in the brain, followed by neuroinflammation, tau aggregation, and widespread cell death. However, in recent years the study of chimpanzee brains - as well as a variety of other species - suggests that some might exhibit enough of the mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease to be said to suffer from it in old age. This is also the case in the aging of dolphins. In today's open access paper, researchers report on more signs of Alzheimer's mechanisms in the brains of sea lions, seals, and walrus. This is all interesting, but doesn't much help the state of Alzheimer's research in practice. None of these large mammal species are likely to be used in laboratories any time soon. Even if they were, it would not be for early stage discovery and exploration. Amyloid β and tau pathology in brains of aged pinniped species (sea lion, seal, and walrus) Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most prevalent a...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs