New Brain Changes in Early Alzheimer's Disease

A study published in Neurobiology of Disease found new changes occurring in the human brain in the early stages of Alzheimer's, reports ScienceDaily . The researchers used a multiomic approach to ascertain RNA, protein, and phosphorylation levels, and conducted further neurobioinformatic analyses on them. They used data available in a Finnish biobank of brain tissue samples, where samples were categorized according to the accumulation of phosphorylated tau protein. Genome-wide analysis indicated associations of functional changes in certain brain cell types with Alzheimer's-related accrual of phosphorylated tau protein. The team also demonstrated that machine learning can classify subjects into different stages of disease pathogenesis simply by examining changes in the expression of a selected group of genes. Later studies will explore whether the newly discovered brain changes in the different stages of Alzheimer's also are visible in cerebrospinal fluid and blood samples, and whether these could be used as new predictive biomarkers. Furthermore, the changes will open up new avenues for potential targets of treatment for the disease.