This metabolic brain boost revives memory in Alzheimer’s mice
The results also offer an approach to treatment that’s unlike anything on the market today. Current drugs for treating Alzheimer’s, such as lecanemab and do nanemab, target the sticky amyloid plaques that build up in a patient’s brain. These drugs can remove plaques and slow the disease process, but do not improve memory or thinking. The result should help “change how we think about targeting this disease,” says Shannon Macauley, an associate professor at the University of Kentucky who was not involved in the study.
A surprise, then a discovery
The new research was prompted by a lab experiment that didn’t go as planned. A team at Stanford was studying an enzyme called IDO1 that plays a key role in keeping a cell’s metabolism running properly. They suspected that in Alzheimer’s disease, IDO1 was malfunctioning in a way that limited the brain’s ability to turn nutrients into energy. So the team used genetics to eliminate the enzyme entirely from mice that develop a form of Alzheimer’s. They figured that without any IDO1, brain metabolism would decline.
The new research was prompted by a lab experiment that didn’t go as planned. A team at Stanford was studying an enzyme called IDO1 that plays a key role in keeping a cell’s metabolism running properly. They suspected that in Alzheimer’s disease, IDO1 was malfunctioning in a way that limited the brain’s ability to turn nutrients into energy. So the team used genetics to eliminate the enzyme entirely from mice that develop a form of Alzheimer’s. They figured that without any IDO1, brain metabolism would decline.
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