Dementia has many faces, and because of the wide range of ways in which it can develop and affect patients, it can be very challenging to treat. Now, however, using supercomputer analysis of big data, researchers from Japan have been able to predict that a single protein is a key factor in the damage caused by two very common forms of dementia. In a study published online on August 12, 2021 in Communications Biology, researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) have revealed that the protein HMGB1 (high mobility group box 1) is a key player in both frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and Alzheimer disease, two of the most common causes of dementia. The open-access article is titled “Prediction and Verification of the AD-FTLD Common Pathomechanism Based on Dynamic Molecular Network Analysis.”