The study included two groups of young adults-one carrying the Alzheimer’s gene variant, one without it-neither of which showed symptoms of the disease. People aged 18 to 30 were asked to navigate through a virtual maze to test the function of certain brain cells. One in six people present a risk variant and, accordingly, have a three times higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Taloa Foster, 33, was arrested for child endangerment. For example, a few of them had to memorize a series of objects and their places in space and put them back together in the same positions.
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To do so, they leveraged previous AD research showing that early physical evidence of disease in AD sufferers is found in a region of the brain called the entorhinal cortex (EC). Of course, this means that longer-term work is quite necessary to determine whether the reduced grid cell function is an actual predictor for Alzheimer’s. In 2005, the EC region was discovered to contain cells known as “grid cells”, a type of neuron (found in many species, including humans) responsible for maintaining spatial orientation and self-positioning. Nikolai Axmacher, senior researcher of the project, said that the results, although unclear, needs to be investigated in further studies in order to draw a conclusion. As pointed out by the paper, the grid cells are the first brain structures to be affected by Alzheimer.
While lying in a brain scanner, participants “navigated” to the location where they remembered seeing an object.
The team analysed the grid cell system in the entorhinal cortex of young students with and without Alzheimer’s risk genes.
What’s more, he added, the APOE4 carriers tended to show a different strategy during the test: Typically, they navigated from a vantage point along the border of the virtual arena, while non-carriers preferred to operate from the center.
Indeed, North Shore-LIJ’s Cushing Neuroscience Institute neurologist Dr. Luco Gilberto warrants, “These findings are interesting and exciting”.
Perhaps Dean Hartley-the director of science initiatives for the Alzheimer’s Association-has the most practical understanding of this study.
The Mirror quoted a spokesman for the Alzheimer’s Society as having said that 60 percent of the people out there that have dementia “never receive a diagnosis” and as a result, “hundreds of thousands of people do not have access to help”.
“The field is trying to figure out, when does this disease process really begin?”
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The ultimate aim of the researchers is to be able to develop a treatment procedure for Alzheimer’s using the results obtained from the VR test. Alzheimer’s is among the most heavily studied diseases in the world, but researchers have had limited success in preventing or reversing the disease.
