Evidence Suggests that Alzheimer’s May Not Destroy Memories, Only Block Them

The earliest symptom of Alzheimer’s disease is short-term memory loss, in which a person begins to lose the ability to remember immediate and recent events. Although the disease progresses into more severe symptoms and can progress into senile dementia, it is the loss of memories that a person most dreads when they are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Though one of the oldest identifiable neurological disorders, Alzheimer’s disease has been extremely difficult to treat, as the brain remains by far the most complex and difficult region of the body to study.

Even existing treatments of Alzheimer’s disease have been slow to effectively combat the progression of the degenerative brain disorder. It is difficult to treat something that is not understood, and while scientists have been able to understand the brain in broad-stroke regions, how the brain creates, saves, and accesses memories remains a mystery. Thus, while some treatments are able to slow the progression of the disease, none have been able to stop or reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

However, new research indicates that scientists may have been operating on a false assumption. Because no individual has ever been able to reclaim lost memories, it has been generally understood that Alzheimer’s causes the individual to lose their memories permanently. Yet, new research seems to disprove this assumption. It may be that Alzheimer’s disease simply blocks regions of the brain from communicating properly, and memories—at least in mice—have been found to be recoverable.

It was thought that Alzheimer’s can permanently destroy memories. This is because for a very long time without a sufficient model outside live human cases the disease was studied. According to the evidences collected it thus show that from recalling memories the brain is prevented due to Alzheimer’s but the scientists could not observe that how Alzheimer’s can destroy memories. Also they were not able to observe how the brain recalls them. A top priority was finding a working model. 

To get the mouse present the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, a gene or a common factor needed to be identified, this gene or common factors is present in humans with Alzheimer’s. They discovered that in the children of Alzheimer’s patients certain genes are commonly expressed and to create working model scientists were able to tap into this gene. It has been a long practice to perform transgenic procedures on mice and a wide range of Alzheimer’s symptoms and pathology are mimicked by mice. They help understand the condition and how throughout life it progresses.

A fascinating discovery was made in a unique research at Columbia University, pioneered by Christine.A.Denny. The mice were trained to react to external stimulus. By doing this, through the use of lights scientists could determine whether critical memories can be recovered by mice. These mice were of a specific breed and during memory recall their brain was genetically engineered to glow red. By doing this scientists were able to store and recall memories.

Training the mice to associated smell of lemon with fear of pain was the next stage of experiment. They were given an electric shock after smelling the lemon. The mice were separated into two groups. The control group was healthy and the other groups presented with Alzheimer’s disease. After a week again the two groups were exposed to the lemon smell.

Ideally after the exposure to smell of lemon they would show signs of fear. But this case was observed only in control groups. As the mice expressed fear both the memory storage and recall centers of the brains lit up. But there was little to no recognition to the lemon smell in case of mice with Alzheimer’s. They did not express fear and different areas of the brain became active. This showed that they had lost their memory of associating pain with smell of lemon.

Determining whether this memory loss was a permanent one or not was the next step to research. The goal of the research team was to stimulate certain regions of the brain. For this fiber optic cables were taken and into the regions of the brain responsible for memory storage and recall, blue laser was shined. Then second time the mice were exposed to lemon smell. This time they displayed signs of fear. The blue laser commanded the brain temporarily to tap into memory storage and recall centers thus acting as a stimulant.

However there is a scepticism about whether associating mice brain with human is an accurate representation or not. Compared to mice, Alzheimer’s patients actually lose far more brain cells. Moreover a vast number of memories daily are stored by human brain. Compared to mice targeting human brain is far more complicated. Treatment options are being developed. For those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in time it would be possible to memories or temporary memory retrieval would be available.