Human Study Suggests Brain Tissue Inflammation Is Key to Alzheimer’s Disease Progression
A University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) School of Medicine-led team has identified neuroinflammation as the key driver of the spread of pathologically misfolded proteins in the brain, and a cause of cognitive impairment in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Using positron emission tomography imaging, the researchers have, for the first time, shown in living patients that neuroinflammation—activation of the brain’s resident microglial immune cells—is not merely a consequence of disease progression but, rather, it is a key upstream mechanism that is a requisite for disease development.
