Why do some people develop Alzheimer’s disease while others do not? And, even more puzzlingly, why do many individuals whose brains are chock-full of toxic amyloid aggregates—a telltale sign of Alzheimer’s brain pathology—never go on to develop Alzheimer’s-associated dementias? University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers appear to have found the answer. Star-shaped brain cells called astrocytes are key to swaying the pendulum in Alzheimer’s disease progression, shows new game-changing research published on May29, 2023 in Nature Medicine. The open-access article is titled “Astrocyte Reactivity Influences Amyloid-Βeta Effects on Tau Pathology in Preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease.” By testing the blood of more than 1,000 cognitively unimpaired elderly people with and without amyloid pathology, the Pitt-led research team found that only those who had a combination of amyloid burden and blood markers of abnormal astrocyte activation, or reactivity, would progress to symptomatic Alzheimer’s in the future, a critical discovery for drug development aimed at halting disease progression.
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