Path of Propagation of Dementia-causing Material Found

Professors Yoon Seung-yong and Kim Dong-ho and researcher Song Ha-lim at the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology of the Asan Medical Center announced on February 20 that they employed fluid mechanics using semiconductor production technology to find the path through which beta-amyloid peptides, which cause dementia, is propagated from a specific accumulation site to another in the human brain. 

The research team applied a fluorescent beta-amyloid peptides to the axis cylinder processes and discovered that the peptides are sent in a reverse direction to nerve cell bodies from the edge of the process through a fine passage, and then propagated to the next nerve cell. 

Alzheimer’s disease, which accounts for more than half of the total number of dementia patients, is characterized by abnormal proteins such as beta-amyloid peptides accumulating in the brain during the metabolism of proteins in brain cell membranes to cut the connection between brain nerve cells or destroy brain cells. 

This is the first time that the propagation of beta-amyloid peptides was studied, although there have been a few research projects on the accumulation of the material in the brain. “We will be able to stop the exacerbation of dementia or prevent the disease once our follow-up research for blocking the propagation of the material through neural networks turns out to be successful.”