Even More Evidence for the Link Between Alzheimer’s and Herpes
In 1907, the German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer published a description of a 50-year-old woman who suffered from memory problems, hallucinations, and delusions. In the woman’s brain, Alzheimer noticed unusual lumps, or “plaques,” which “were caused by the deposition of an unusual substance.” Eight decades later, the mystery substance was finally identified as a protein called amyloid beta. Though small, it can accumulate in large clusters that are somehow toxic to neurons. Those harmful plaques are one of the hallmarks of the disease that bears Alzheimer’s name.
What amyloid beta normally does in the brain isn’t clear. , a neurologist at the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease, says that many researchers have cast it as a villainous molecule with no beneficial
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