Columbia Study Suggests Possible Common Thread Between Many Neurodegenerative Diseases

Take a cell-deep tour of a brain afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, and you will find minuscule clumps of protein that seem suspicious. Ever since the 1980s, when neuroscientists began identifying these protein tangles, researchers have discovered that other brain diseases have their own tangled-protein signatures.

“Each of these diseases has a unique protein tangle, or fibril, associated with it,” said Anthony Fitzpatrick, PhD, principal investigator at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute.  “These proteins associated with diseases have their own shapes and behaviors,” added Dr. Fitzpatrick, also an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and a member of Columbia’s Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain. [read more]

Source: CUIMC Newsroom