A gene allele that increases the risk of Alzheimer's disease began 50 years before appear it symptoms of the disease, a new study suggests brain damage.
One allele is one of two or more forms of a gene.
In 2009, scientists have concluded that the gene (EXCL) clusterin increases the chances of Alzheimer's by 16 percent, but it was not clear how it risk increased.
This new study has concluded that the c of the CLU gene allele hinders development of myelin, the protective autour axons of neurons in the brain. This violates the wiring of the brain and can make a person more susceptible to the onset of Alzheimer's disease later in life.
Approximately 88% of whites have the CLU C-allele, according to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers.
For this study, they have used a newer type of MRI to map the connections in the brain of almost 400 adults aged 20 to 30 years. Scans revealed that the participants with the C-allele CLU had the integrity of the white matter than those with a different variant called the CLU t allele.
The results are interesting on several levels, according to lead study author Paul Thompson, Professor of Neurology.
"For example, Alzheimer's disease has traditionally been considered a disease characterized by neuronal loss and grey generalized atrophy of matter," he said in a UCLA press release. "But degeneration of myelin in matter fiber pathways white is more be regarded as a key component of the disease and another way possible to the disease, and that supports the discovery.".
Understand the effects of the C-allele CLU could lead to ways to intervene to protect the brain in the decades before that Alzheimer's disease develops, Thompson suggested.
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