Blood-Brain Barrier Breakdown an Early Driver of Dementia, Study Says

A study published in Nature Medicine found leaky capillaries in the brain augur early-onset Alzheimer's, indicating cognitive impairment before toxic proteins amyloid and tau appear, reports Medical Xpress . The five-year analysis of 161 older adults demonstrated that people with especially poor memory exhibited the most leakage in their brain's blood vessels, no matter whether amyloid and tau were present. "The fact that we're seeing the blood vessels leaking, independent of tau and independent of amyloid, when people have cognitive impairment on a mild level, suggests it could be a totally separate process or a very early process," notes the University of Southern California's Berislav Zlokovic. "That was surprising that this blood-brain barrier breakdown is occurring independently."