On Early Alzheimer's Development
(From News-Medical.net). Understanding exactly how Alzheimer's disease develops in its earliest stages is a very necessary first step on the path to early detection and prevention. Researchers are now looking beyond the characteristic amyloid plaques to uncover the causative biochemistry: "Early Alzheimer's disease may be precipitated by a 'traffic jam' within neurons that causes swelling and prevents proper transport of proteins and structures in the cells ... we decided to look at mouse models of Alzheimer's disease early in their life, before plaque formation, to see if we could detect early evidence of abnormal axonal transport ... What we saw quite early in the life of those animals - well before any plaque deposition - were obvious axonal defects."