What is it about?
Many neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease are associated with several common routes which initiate and facilitate the disease. One of these mechanisms is a general inflammation of the brain causing a further toxic environment and leading to accelerated death of brain cells. We have used a mouse model to study this particular mechanism and investigated a way to slow down neurodegeneration.
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Why is it important?
This study is one of the first to show that blocking a pathway which causes an inflammation of the brain during the development of neurodegeneration, helps to slow down the disease and stop certain disease-relevant signalling cascades. By reducing the effects of this neuroinflammation in early stages of the disease the mice which normally develop the disease rapidly remain healthier for longer and do not show disease phenotypes, such as loss of neuronal function.
Perspectives
I believe that this study provides some important information how to develop future strategies to tackle the ever-growing number of cases of neurodegeneration in the world and future efforts will have to employ new and different approaches to address the challenges of successfully treating and preventing these diseases.
Dr Joern R Steinert
University of Nottingham
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Inhibition of neuroinflammatory nitric oxide signaling suppresses glycation and prevents neuronal dysfunction in mouse prion disease, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, March 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2009579118.
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Contributors
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