Just like Parkinson’s Disease may originate in the gut, another brain disorder may find its genesis there.  Alzheimer’s.

But, this time, instead of α-synuclein, it’s clumps of  beta-amyloid.  (These clumps are found in the guts of subjects with Alzheimer’s disease.)

Dr. John Rudd (along with Drs. Y. Sun [ this was the basis of her PhD thesis], N. Sommerville, J. Liu, M. Ngan, D. Poon, E. Ponomarev, Z. Lu, and J Kung) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong published their findings in the Journal of Physiology.   By injecting fluorescently marked beta-amyloid into mice guts, they could track where these compounds moved in the body.

Its initial uptake was in the enteric nervous system. But, within a year, these amyloids traversed their way up the vagus nerve (which connects the gut and the brain) into the brains of the mice.  Even that was only part of the story.

The beta-amyloid clusters altered gastric function and effected amyloidosis in the central nervous system.

More importantly, once the beta-amyloids accumulated in the mice brains, the mice manifested both short- and long- term memory failures.  As if they had Alzheimer’s disease.

It seems that the trick is going to be precluding this vagal nerve transport from occurring- or finding a way to slow it down, to diminish the progression of Alzheimer’s.  But, this also may be but ONE of the mechanisms that cause the development of the disease.

And, another question- why do beta-amyloids accumulate in the gut?  What are they doing there?  (It is thought they may be like fly-paper- trapping toxic microbes and viruses from migrating along out body.

Share this: