"A major cause of dementia has been potentially discovered, scientists report. In the type of dementia studied, there is damage to the white matter (nerve fibres) of the brain apparent on computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of older individuals." - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141030100521.htm
So what did they find? Scientists from the Krembil Neuroscience Centre examined 5 patients to come to the following conclusion (yes, this is a small sample size, so this study will have to be replicated with a larger sample size maintain its integrity. So we've known all a long that there seems to be an increase in the amount of damaged white matter in dementia patients, suggesting that this increase is the root cause of the patients' cognitive impairment. With this study, however, we have potentially found out why this happens. The scientists found that the damaged white matter is caused by a series of small cerebral infarcts (strokes) that go pretty much unnoticed and without many symptoms. These small strokes cause tiny new spots in the brain that are potentially the reason behind white matter disease and dementia.
So what implications does this have?
Well there is on major benefit we get from this study. If these findings prove to be accurate, it will be much easier to prevent this cognitive decline in dementia patients. Remember however, that there are different types of dementia, so this will only directly benefit the type of dementia but not degenerative dementia. Anyways, so in this specific type of dementia, the problem results from vascular disease caused by small instances of blood vessels affecting the brain (this is what causes the stroke). These small blood vessels become dysfunctional, causing these tiny strokes and producing the tiny spots in the damaged white matter of dementia patients. Now that we know this, we can potentially stop this process by targeting such blood vessels and preventing them from damaging the brain.
No comments:
Post a Comment