For decades, scientists have focused on amyloid plaques—abnormal clumps of misfolded proteins that accumulate between neurons—as a therapeutic target for Alzheimer’s disease. But anti-amyloid therapies haven’t made strong headway in treating the devastating condition.

Now, researchers at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) are zeroing in on a byproduct of these plaques, called axonal spheroids, and exploring how to reverse their growth. They published their findings March 10 in Nature Aging.

Axonal spheroids are bubble-like structures on axons—the part of the neuron that sends messages through electrical impulses—that form due to swelling induced by amyloid plaques. Previous research at YSM has shown that as these spheroids grow, they block electricity conduction in the axons, which can hinder the ability to communicate with other neurons.