Brain Discovery May Boost Treatments For Women With Alzheimer’s

Women living with Alzheimer’s disease experience faster cognitive deterioration than men, and Israeli researchers have just discovered a reason why. 

Many female Alzheimer’s patients have been found to inherit a specific molecular mechanism from their mothers, where tRNA, a part of the cell that helps build proteins, is severely depleted in the brain nuclei. 

With this discovery, scientists may be able to develop more effective RNA-based therapies for patients with the disease. 

Current treatments are only capable of delaying symptom progression, but are known to result in more severe side effects in women. Consequently, the decline in cognitive functioning in women with Alzheimer’s continues despite treatment, further exacerbating the challenges they face.

“Our research presents a significant contribution to the existing body of Alzheimer’s research by uncovering new insights into the factors driving accelerated cognitive decline in women, underscoring crucial distinctions not only in disease progression but also in treatment response,” said Professor Hermona Soreq, the brain gene expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who led the study.  

“Moreover, these findings have implications for treating these symptoms by RNA-based therapies, which emerged in recent years, and now present a viable option.”

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, globally affecting over 50 million people. Patients with the disease experience changes in their brains, where previously healthy neurons stop functioning, lose connections with other neurons, and die. 

As the disease worsens, patients experience memory loss, confusion, an inability to learn and carry out tasks like getting dresses, hallucinations, paranoia, and more. 

“With this discovery we can take a crucial step forward in developing drugs suitable for women suffering from this devastating condition, and pave the way for optimal care and support for Alzheimer’s patients and their families,” Prof. Soreq concluded.

The study was published in The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.