Another article from a university's public relations department claims that a major breakthrough has been made in Alzheimer's disease. There is one of these crazy articles every day.
Source: Peta
This time, the bar is set very high by the public relations department: "Our research demonstrates that by targeting synaptic activity early, we may be able to prevent or slow the progression of Alzheimer's. This could revolutionize the way we approach treatment for this disease" noted Drs. Miranda Reed and Michael Gramlich.
Since Alzheimer's is characterized by significant loss of brain matter, we expect at least an article showing the genesis of new neurons in several model animals of different species. Showing a change in very different species gives hope that the action of a drug will be as effective on humans.
Alzheimer's disease scientists usually work on mouse models of the disease 3xTg mice that declare the disease at the age of 8 months. This age is convenient for academics to use the free labor of students, but in a human, it is about 25 years old. This is very young to model Alzheimer's disease.
But what makes me jump is that all that is measured by these scientists is the change in synapses in an in vitro culture of 3xTg mice!
In fact, using in-vitro culture of cells from an animal model is very convenient, no need to raise mice! But the odds this is translatable to humans are minuscule. Nobody does this in preclinical studies. The claims of a revolution in the treatment of human Alzheimer's patients are extremely ridiculous.
In addition, the names of authors Michael Gramlich and Miranda Reed appear in all sorts of publications, most of which have nothing to do with neurodegenerative diseases.
Additionally, one of the authors of this article is the CEO of Biohaven Pharmaceuticals. Another author is the Chief Medical Officer of this company, and while he is a medical doctor, he is also not an Alzheimer's specialist.