Stress speeds up brain degeneration

摘要

Prolonged stress may accelerate neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease by exacerbating the build-up of damaging proteins in the brain. John Trojanowski at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and his colleagues studied mice that had been engineered to accumulate the proteins (3-amyloid or tau in their brains, in a similar manner to that seen in people with Alzheimer's disease. They induced stress in these animals by housing them in isolation and periodically restraining them inside a tube. The stressed mice developed even greater amounts of brain P-amyloid or tau than non-stressed mice; they also had poorer memory and lost more brain tissue.