A new clue to the cause of Alzheimer’s disease has been discovered by the researchers. A sticky protein known as beta-amyloid, clutter the brains of people that have memory-robbing form of dementia. But this is still a riddle whether this sticky protein is a side effect or a cause of the disease. Tangles of a protein known as tau are also involved in this procedure, some scientists considering it a cause.

Injecting rats with a specific kind of beta-amyloid, the researchers caused Alzheimer’s symptoms in them. The researchers noted that other kinds of beta-amyloid when injected to the rats, it didn’t cause illness in them. It shows that some people have beta-amyloid plaque in their brains but don’t have symptoms of the disease.

These findings were reported in online issue of the journal Nature Medicine by a team of Harvard Medical School led by Dr. Ganesh M. Shankar and Dr. Dennis J Selkoe.

The extracts from the brains of people who offered their bodies to medicine were used in the research.

Insoluble cores of the brain plaque and some forms of soluble beta-amyloid with different numbers of molecules were injected into rats’ brains and the researchers didn’t find any detectable effect from the insoluble plaque or from the one and three molecule forms of soluble plaque.

However, characteristics of Alzheimer’s were noted in the rats with two-molecule form of soluble beta-amyloid, the researchers found.

Dr. Marclle Morrison-Bogard, Dirctor of the division of neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging, stated that it happened first time when the research showed the consequences of a specific kind of beta-amyloid in the brain. The research was sponsored by the National Institute on Aging. Alzheimer’s has become a serious health issue in the U.S and emerging as a big challenge for the reasearchers.

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