The story beyond Auguste D.

Mrs. Auguste Deter was the first known patient of Alzheimer's disease (AD) named after her doctor, Dr. Alois Alzheimer. Looking through his notes published since, we can get a keen and frightful insight in Mrs. D's final years. She had no sense of time, not even of "basic" things we take for granted. Basic things as your first name, last name - that normally we don't need any preparation or coaching to answer. But it was beyond her ability, and all AD patients since then. In her interview with Dr. Alzheimer, she remarked, "I have lost myself". What Dr. Alzheimer found out upon autopsy of her brain, something we know for certain about this disease today, that it is not so much that she had lost herself, rather her "self" was taken from her!* Autopsy of her brain showed the two key molecular culprits, present as 'plaques' and 'tangles'.

Plaques, made up of amyloid beta, are nestled between neurons and prevent them from communicating to each other. On this note, I have to tell you what somebody once commented to me on 'man being a social animal', that if a disease doesn't kill a man, isolation will! Well, this is true in a literal sense for our nerve cells or neurons. At any stage of life, if a neuron cannot communicate, it will surely perish. In an advanced case like that of Mrs. D, the plaques are very prominent. In fact, Dr. Alzheimer could see them  without any stain at all!

The second unique found in her brain were tangles, ominous-looking strands wound like ropes. These are mostly present inside dying neurons. The protein that wounds up in these ropy strands is the tau protein.

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Next post: links between amyloid beta and tau

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* David Shenk, "The Memory Hole". NY Times, 2006

Alzheimer's: What we know - part I (of many)

The Alzheimer's Association has an excellent interactive tour- "Inside the brain" - worth a look if you've not seen it. This section explains well, in simple terms, the normal brain and compares it to an Alzheimer's brain:
http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_4719.asp?WT.ac=Sidebar_Brain_Tour&type=sidebar
(On a side note, the slide with "thinking wrinkles" on this tour is especially cool!)

For selfish reasons, I want to start on the said topic with my research focus- tau protein.

This protein is mainly what makes up the tangles found in the brains of patients suffering with Alzheimer's and related diseases. If you've ever looked at railroad tracks, you've seen the different nuts, bolts, & ties there are, that keep the tracks in place. Well, the function of tau protein in nerve cells is somewhat similar. Nerve cells have similar 'tracks' used to transport any number of things back 'n forth from the cell body to the nerve terminal. When tau is on these tracks, it keeps them in place for as long as they are needed. This is one difference between railroad tracks in our world and those inside our neurons - the latter has 'dynamic' tracks, in that they are constantly being built and taken apart, depending on the requirements of a neuron are. I suppose a close analogy would be the moving staircase in "Harry Potter".

In disease, tau protein is no longer available to keep the tracks stable. As a result, the tracks disintegrate and eventually, the cells die.

Alzheimer's Caregiver Repetitive Questions Learning to Communicate Effectively

Alzheimer's Caregiver Repetitive Questions Learning to Communicate Effectively

Before all else, I want to express my appreciation for Mr. Joe Potocny for his blog here on "Living with Alzheimer's". Getting a glimpse into what it's like to live with this disease day in and day out is an important experience for myself as a researcher in this field.
I've always felt that a clinician who sees patients suffering with these progressively debilitating disorder, talk to family members of the patients - has this direct connection - which could very well feed into a personal drive/ambition to move the field forward- be that in improving diagnosis, understanding causes or coming up with treatment strategies. As researcher, I'm removed from that. And this blog is my way of making that connection - bolstering that personal ambition towards cure for Alzheimer's and related disorders.
I'll conclude this entry with words from a gentleman in Phoenix, who is also an Alzheimer's patient- his name escapes me at the moment. I saw him in the HBO documentary on Alzheimer's and the last scene on his segment in the documentary, he said "I just want someone to come up with the cure."