Brain Tissue Inflammation May Be Key to Alzheimer’s Disease Progression

Neuroinflammation is the key driver of the spread of pathologically misfolded proteins in the brain and causes cognitive impairment in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine reveal in a paper published online on August 26, 2021 in Nature Medicine. The article is titled “Microglial Activation and Tau Propagate Jointly Across Braak Stages.” For the first time ever, the researchers showed in living patients that neuroinflammation—or activation of the brain’s resident immune cells, called microglial cells—is not merely a consequence of disease progression; rather, it is a key upstream mechanism that is indispensable for disease development.
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