{"id":104554,"date":"2020-03-31T19:42:53","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T02:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/getting-closer-to-a-blood-test-for-alzheimers-disease"},"modified":"2020-03-31T19:42:53","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T02:42:53","slug":"getting-closer-to-a-blood-test-for-alzheimers-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/getting-closer-to-a-blood-test-for-alzheimers-disease","title":{"rendered":"Getting Closer to a Blood Test for Alzheimer\u2019s Disease?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/getting-closer-to-a-blood-test-for-alzheimers-disease.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As research on Alzheimer\u2019s disease (AD) advances, a desperate need remains for an easy blood test to help diagnose the condition as early as possible. Ideally, such a test could also distinguish AD from other forms of dementia that produce similar symptoms. As published recently in <em>Nature Medicine<\/em>, an NIH-funded research team has designed a simple blood test that is on course to meet these criteria [1].<\/p>\n<p>The latest work builds on a large body of work showing that one secret to predicting a person\u2019s cognitive decline and treatment response in AD lies in a <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"protein called tau (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/directorsblog.nih.gov\/2016\/05\/24\/alzheimers-disease-tau-protein-predicts-early-memory-loss\" target=\"_blank\">protein called tau<\/a>. Using the powerful, but expensive, approach of PET scan imaging, we know that tau builds up in the brain as Alzheimer\u2019s disease progresses. We also know that some tau spills from the brain into the bloodstream.<\/p>\n<p>The trouble is that the circulating tau protein breaks down far too quickly for a blood test to offer a reliable measure of what\u2019s happening in a person\u2019s brain. A few years ago, researchers discovered a possible solution: test for blood levels of a slightly different and more stable version of the protein called pTau181 [2]. (The \u201cp\u201d in its name comes from the addition of phosphorus in a particular part of the protein\u2019s structure.) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As research on Alzheimer\u2019s disease (AD) advances, a desperate need remains for an easy blood test to help diagnose the condition as early as possible. Ideally, such a test could also distinguish AD from other forms of dementia that produce similar symptoms. As published recently in Nature Medicine, an NIH-funded research team has designed a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}