For the first time, a study has shown clear signs of Alzheimer\u2019s disease in a wild animal: the dolphin. Both dolphins and humans have a long post-productive lifespan, and Alzheimer\u2019s disease may be one of the costs of our longevity, the study suggests.<\/p>\n
The research team \u2013 made up of scientists from the Universities of St. Andrews and Edinburgh in Scotland, the University of Florida in the US, and the University of Oxford in England \u2013 has detected signs of Alzheimer\u2019s disease in the brains of dead dolphins found stranded along the coast of Spain. The team analyzed the accumulation of two proteins in dolphin brains: at the extracellular level, the accumulation of a protein called beta-amyloid, which causes senile plaques, and, at the intracellular level, the aggregation of a protein called tau, which triggers neurofibrillary degeneration. These senile plaques and neurofibrillary degeneration are the hallmarks of Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt is very rare to find signs of full-blown Alzheimer\u2019s disease in non-human brains,\u201d says Simon Lovestone, a researcher at the Oxford University Department of Psychiatry<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cIt is very rare to find signs of full-blown Alzheimer\u2019s disease in non-human brains,\u201d says Simon Lovestone, a researcher at the Oxford University Department of Psychiatry and co-author of the study. This is the first time that the accumulation of these two proteins associated with Alzheimer\u2019s have been observed in the brain of a wild animal.<\/p>\n
Do dolphins with these signs of disease suffer from memory loss and confusion similar to what is observed in humans with Alzheimer\u2019s? At this stage of research, scientists are unable to answer this question. This is difficult to verify in a wild species and the research team does not advocate testing dolphins in captivity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the first time, a study has shown clear signs of Alzheimer\u2019s disease in a wild animal: the dolphin. Both dolphins and humans have a long post-productive lifespan, and Alzheimer\u2019s disease may be one of the costs of our longevity, the study suggests. The research team \u2013 made up of scientists from the Universities of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":40014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[564,563,565],"class_list":["post-43598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alzheimers-disease","tag-dolphin","tag-health"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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