"Alzheimer's disease seems to spread like an infection from brain cell to brain cell, two new studies in mice have found. But instead of viruses or bacteria, what is being spread is a distorted protein known as tau. The surprising finding answers a longstanding question and has immediate implications for developing treatments, researchers said. And they suspect that other degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson’s may spread in a similar way."

In the New York Times, February 1, 2012

(Sorry, I am new so I can't post link.)

Very interesting. This is further evidence that both PD and AD are prion diseases. Scary because so is Mad Cow in bovines and in humans in Jacob-Creutzfeldt disease. The good news is that there is a vaccine to halt alpha-synuclein aggregation in clinical trial in Austria. However, there are some familial forms of PD that do not have alpha-syn aggregation, so what happens with them?

Thanks for sharing!

Here is the link to NYT article


Path is found in the spread of Alzheimer's

i just looked up alpha synuclein pathway in google and got a thread form this forum first.

Here is an interesting discussion about PD being a prion disease. I hope not since
there is little that can be done about it.

http://journals.lww.com/neurotodayon...xperts.12.aspx

This paper was dated 21 January, 2010, two years ago, wondering if there is some new development on the same subject?

At the top of the NYT article it gives a date of 2/1/12. This was also listed in Googlenews, so I don't think it's two years old.

I think WXXU was referring to the journal article posted by GerryW;that is dated 1/21/10.

The immune response we have may a way to end these diseases. Affiris, an Austrian biotech, is beginning Phase II trial on a vaccine for prevention of AD. Glaxo-Smith Kline is partnering with them to develop the vaccine and has agreed to pay up to $420 million Euro if vaccine goes to market. That seems like a huge vote in confidence, to me at least.


Fierce Vaccines

In October 2011, Affiris announced they would receive funding on a PD vaccine from MJFF. The PD vaccine uses same technology as the AD one, so safety has already been established. I just hope it won't take the typical 14 years before we see any benefit on a large scale.

University of Nebraska researchers are also pursuing a PD vaccine.

In early stages of PD, a vaccine may halt disease progress plus alleviate symptoms. For later disease, it would at very least slow progression.