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Unlocking Alzheimer's Mysteries

Posted by michael on from the new-friends-every-day dept.

Animalicious Cow writes "A shunt implanted in the skull of a patient with Alzheimer's could be the first treatment that actually fixes what's broken in the brain rather than simply masking symptoms of the debilitating disease."

7 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Ceribro-dialysis by wowbagger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This makes me wonder if you couldn't do something along the lines of hemodialysis - slowly feed in a synthetic ceribro-spinal fluid, and then drain off the contaminated CSF.

    Any doctors in the house?

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    1. Re:Ceribro-dialysis by Muhammar · · Score: 3, Informative

      1) cerebro-

      2) injecting anything into brain through catheter would cause HUGE risk of infecion.

      They just milk the brain. The system is closed (outlet into stomach) for the reason 2)

      There is another disease where this approach works: hemochromatosis.
      Genetic defect in hemochromatosis patients causes iron overabsorbtion, which would gradualy kill them. Bleeding these patients regularly saves their lives.

      http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/hemochromatosis/

      Now they even allow hemochromatosis patient blood to be donated to bloodbanks.

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      I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
  2. Re:interesting by PD · · Score: 3, Informative

    Except that it's wrong. New brain cells can form in adult brains.

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    If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
  3. Yikes by barakn · · Score: 3, Funny
    I found myself wondering how the CSF was transported all the way from the brain to the peritoneum, and then I saw the diagram of the tube that runs underneath the skin.

    "Wow, grandpa, you're ripped. Look at that vein in your pectoral muscle.... wait, that's not a vein! Gross!"

    I hope they perfect the anti-amyloid vaccines.

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    "I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
  4. Fascinating idea... by dacarr · · Score: 3, Informative

    Considering that the jury is apparently still out on aluminum contributing or causing alzheimer's disease, this is an interesting concept.

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  5. Better Symptomatic Treatment by E.+T.+Alveron · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I disagree with the author's claim that this "fixes what's broken" in an alzheimer's patient.

    From what I can tell, the shunt drains excess cerebrospinal fluid, which prevents (harmful) protein deposition. However it doesn't restore a healthy equilibrium of CSF production and consumption.

    1. Re:Better Symptomatic Treatment by p7 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The article does say that the shunt increases CSF production, by filtering out the offending proteins and sending them to the peritoneum. Obviously the article lacks some details of the process. For one it starts off saying that the shunt drains CSF from the brain a drop every minute. It then mentions how this process will increase CSF replenishment. My guess is that these drips are less than the increased CSF that removing the proteins provide.