Cetacean brain reveals secrets of Alzheimer’s disease

Scottish scientists have identified “natural progression” of lesions in cetaceans similar to those caused by cetacean neurodegenerative disease. Alzheimer’s diseasesomething so far “unique to humans,” pathologist Mark Daglish, one of the participants in the discovery, told EFE.

From opening to dolphins Elderly people washed up on the Scottish coast, researchers believe they have found the key to their disorientation, and hope to use this discovery to improve our understanding of illness in humans.

“We saw the same signs of pathology as in people with Alzheimer’s,” explained Daglish, chair of pathology at the University of Glasgow and leader of the study, published in the European Journal of Neurology.

Caution, the specialist who was responsible for the post-mortem analysis of cetaceans, clarifies that so far it cannot be argued that animals suffer from illness because, in addition to physical tests, it is necessary to demonstrate “cognitive deficiencies”, something that can only be learned “in life”.

The best opportunity for this, he argues, is the cognitive study of those who are in captivity or in prison. Zoobecause their caretakers “know when animals are undergoing changes in their behavior, habits, or reactions.”

SIMILARITIES TO HUMANS

Researcher Tara Spires-Jones, head of neurodegeneration at the University of Edinburgh, set out to look for similarities between lesions in the cetacean and human brains.

He found them in three different species of dolphins, in which he found the coexistence of amyloid plaques — “a phenomenon that occurs in healthy people as they age,” as he described EFE — along with “neurofibrillary tangles,” another necessary ingredient. develop dementia.

Plaques are due to the inability of the brain to clear neuronal secretions of amyloid protein, while glomeruli are due to abnormal accumulation of tau protein. The combination of both plays a key role in neurodegeneration.

The symptoms found in cetaceans, the researcher says, “resemble the early stages of human Alzheimer’s rather than its full late stage.”

The group that continues the study, made up of experts from the universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Glasgow, is now focused on “getting more funding” to be able to expand its exams, which have hitherto been held by 22 copies, Dagleysh said.

CAREFUL WHALES

The pathologist wonders if this discovery could explain the large number of beached cetaceans: “Why is this happening when most of the animals appear to be healthy?” he asks.

Something from this animals “They live in family groups,” he says. “If one of them gets sick, the others will feed him”, no one is left out thanks to the cohesion of the group.

Typically, the leader is animal An elderly, “quite often adult female” who can lose “the ability to understand where she is in three dimensions, which is very important in the life of a dolphin,” said Spears-Jones, having developed the disease.

“She gets sick, gets disoriented,” she describes, “and ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time,” on “a shallow beach at high tide,” and soon runs aground.

Daglish emphasizes the importance of this discovery for species wild dolphins: “This can give us ideas (about Alzheimer’s) and show what the first changes it causes”, which may allow “better diagnosing people.”

“It is very important to explore and understand other species,” confirms Spears-Jones, “in order to develop treatments such as the American lekanemab, which “reverses the course of the disease and slows cognitive decline,” a drug that “does not interact with animals we would not be able to develop.

EFE