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Washington: Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have identified a possible explanation for the mysterious death of specific brain cells in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases.
According to new research, cells could die due to the natural variation of genes in brain cells that until recently were supposed to be genetically identical.
Variation, called somatic mosaicism, may explain why temporal lobe neurons are the first to die in Alzheimer's, for example, and the first dopaminergic neurons to die in Parkinson's.
Speaking of which, neuroscientist Michael McConnell said, "This is a big open question in neuroscience, especially in various neurodegenerative diseases," adding, "What is this selective vulnerability? What is underlying it? And so now, with our work, the hypotheses that are advancing are that it could be that different brain regions actually have a different garden from these. [variations] among young people and setting up different regions for decline later in life. "
The discoveries of the unexpected variation in the genetic make-up of individual brain cells come from McConnell's research on schizophrenia. This discovery may help explain not only schizophrenia, but also depression, bipolar disorder, autism and other conditions.
McConnell expects this mosaicism to increase with age – that mutations accumulate over time. What he and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins discovered is exactly the opposite: the youngest had the most mosaicism and the oldest the least.
McConnell added, "We ended up building an atlas containing neurons of 15 people. None of these people had any illness.
He added: "Their age ranged from less than a year to 94 years and it showed a perfect correlation – a perfect anti-correlation – with age."
Based on this discovery, McConnell believes that neurons with significant genetic variation, called CNV neurons, are perhaps the most vulnerable to death. And this could explain the idiosyncratic death of specific neurons in different neurodegenerative diseases. People with the largest number of CNV neurons in the temporal lobe, for example, are at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
"As I collaborate with the Lieber Institute and have this fantastic brain bank, I can now examine the frontal cortex of individuals. [for the schizophrenia research] and I can look at the temporal lobe in these same individuals, "said McConnell. "So now, I can really start mapping things more carefully, by building an atlas of different brain regions of many individuals."
This research could significantly advance the understanding of both neurodegenerative diseases and cognitive decline that plague us with age, leading to new treatments.
Source: ANI
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