Why People With Alzheimer's May Lose Their Way

A study in Neuron details how Alzheimer's disease disrupts the brain network function of hippocampus cells for discriminating a distinct spatial environment, reports Futurity . The researchers used Alzheimer's disease model mice to suggest that the activity impairment of the entorhinal cortex, an area that supplies information to the hippocampus, most likely induces this disruption. "Our memory comes from activities of the brain network," said University of California, Irvine School of Medicine Professor Kei Igarashi. "To find out the cure for memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease, we need to understand how the network function is impaired." Spatial memory impairment, like wandering behavior, is one of the most worrying Alzheimer's symptoms, occurring in more than 60 percent of patients. It remains largely uncertain how deterioration of brain circuit function triggers spatial memory loss. "Our findings could lead to the development of a method to reactivate brain activity of the entorhinal cortex, which may help establish new treatments for preventing the progression of spatial memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease patients," said Igarashi.