Do Infectious Organisms Play a Role in Alzheimer's?

For researchers investigating Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), a devastating neurodegenerative illness afflicting close to 6 million Americans, it is the best and worst of times. Scientists have made exponential advances in understanding many aspects of the mysterious disease since it was first diagnosed over 100 years ago. Nevertheless, every effort to find a cure for AD or even slow its relentless advance has met with dispiriting failure. The next chapter in the fight against the disease will require dynamic insights and adventurous new approaches. In a lively discussion appearing in the Viewpoint section of the journal Nature Reviews Neurology, Ben Readhead, a researcher in the ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center at the Biodesign Institute joins several distinguished colleagues to discuss the idea that bacteria, viruses or other infectious pathogens may play a role in Alzheimer’s disease. The concept, sometimes referred to as the infectious theory of Alzheimer’s disease, was first proposed some 30 years ago. Since then, the idea has encountered considerable resistance in the research community. Until recently, it had been largely displaced in favor of approaches https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/do-infectious-organisms-play-a-role-in-alzheimers-332289?utm_campaign=NEWSLETTER_TN_Breaking%20Science%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=84964491&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--51BchPdMETJxwqXm-_0HJZOtfFFP9fGTc7_zedKoodg6__Z2eAoYrz80a0WXRV1cc7oqgys_TgkSs6eNo-kdexvhqlA&_hsmi=84964491