E' stata individuata l'area neurale dove nasce e si diffonde il morbo di Alzheimer: la scoperta potrebbe portare a un metodo di diagnosi precoce e magari un giorno ad un intervento terapeutico anticipato in grado di bloccare la malattia. La scoperta - resa nota sulla rivista Nature Neuroscience - si deve a ricercatori del Columbia University Medical Center.
Finora era noto che il morbo di Alzheimer - la forma più diffusa della demenza senile -avesse origine in una zona della corteccia cerebrale chiamata corteccia entorinale. Ma adesso gli scienziati americani hanno scoperto esattamente dove tutto ha inizio e come si diffonde la malattia al resto del cervello.
Utilizzando una versione ad alta risoluzione della risonanza magnetica gli esperti hanno visto che la malattia inizia con l'accumulo di proteine tossiche nella "corteccia entorinale laterale", una zona particolarmente sensibile a tale accumulo e che per di più è la 'porta di ingresso' verso l'ippocampo, il centro della memoria. La risonanza ad alta risoluzione ha "filmato" i primi danni che si vedono perché appena ha inizio la demenza il flusso di sangue che irrora quella particolare zona inizia a ridursi, segno di alterato metabolismo cerebrale.
Gli studiosi hanno arruolato 96 anziani e li hanno monitorati per una media di tre anni e mezzo. I partecipanti erano tutti sani all'inizio dello studio, ma poi nel corso del tempo alcuni avevano cominciato a manifestare i primi segni di lieve declino cognitivo
che è l'anticamera della demenza.
ATS/CC
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