McGill University researchers have discovered a cellular mechanism that may contribute to the breakdown of communication between neurons in Alzheimer’s disease.
Their study, published in Nature Communications, homes in on the role of RNA molecules involved in synaptic transmission — the process through which neurons communicate with each other. In the brain tissue of Alzheimer’s patients, the RNAs that encode synaptic proteins are degraded more rapidly than in healthy brain cells, the researchers found. They also discovered that a protein that helps stabilize these RNAs was less abundant in the neurons of Alzheimer’s patients.
