New Clues to Alzheimer’s


One promising study, led by researchers at Harvard Medical School, was published online Wednesday in the journal Nature. It identified a protein that typically increases in old age and appears to protect brain cells from dying. In patients who develop Alzheimer’s, the protein, called REST, is in short supply and out of position. In patients who have yet to suffer cognitive losses, the protective protein is still present and in the right spot (the nucleus of a neuron) to be effective even if those patients have the brain tangles and plaques long associated with Alzheimer’s.

Further research is clearly needed, but if the importance of REST is confirmed, the hope is that drugs can be found that will boost its functioning in the brain without causing other harm in the brain’s complicated circuitry.


It was a small study whose clinical value needs further validation. But if an accurate blood test can make it easier to identify at-risk patients, the hope is that science will also be able to offer them effective treatment.