Scientists discover that oxytocin could be used to treat cognitive disorder like Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n
Alzheimer\u2019s disease is a progressive disorder in which the nerve cells (neurons) in a person\u2019s brain and the connections among them degenerate slowly, causing severe memory loss, intellectual deficiencies, and deterioration in motor skills and communication. One of the main causes of Alzheimer\u2019s is the accumulation of a protein called amyloid \u03b2 (A\u03b2) in clusters around neurons in the brain, which hampers their activity and triggers their degeneration.<\/p>\n
Studies in animal models have found that increasing the aggregation of A\u03b2 in the hippocampus\u2014the brain\u2019s main learning and memory center\u2014causes a decline in the signal transmission potential of the neurons therein. This degeneration affects a specific trait of the neurons, called \u2018synaptic plasticity<\/a>,\u2019 which is the ability of synapses (the site of signal exchange between neurons) to adapt to an increase or decrease in signaling activity over time. Synaptic plasticity is crucial to the development of learning and cognitive functions in the hippocampus. Thus, A\u03b2 and its role in causing cognitive memory and deficits have been the focus of most research aimed at finding treatments for Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n Now, advancing this research effort, a team of scientists from Japan, led by Professor Akiyoshi Saitoh from the Tokyo University of Science, has looked at oxytocin, a hormone conventionally known for its role in the female reproductive system and in inducing the feelings of love and well-being. \u201cOxytocin was recently found to be involved in regulating learning and memory performance, but so far, no previous study deals with the effect of oxytocin on A\u03b2-induced cognitive impairment<\/a>,\u201d Prof Saitoh says. Realizing this, Prof Saitoh\u2019s group set out to connect the dots. Their findings are published in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scientists discover that oxytocin could be used to treat cognitive disorder like Alzheimer\u2019s disease. Alzheimer\u2019s disease is a progressive disorder in which the nerve cells (neurons) in a person\u2019s brain and the connections among them degenerate slowly, causing severe memory loss, intellectual deficiencies, and deterioration in motor skills and communication. One of the main causes [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":461,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110542","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\/461"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110777,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110542\/revisions\/110777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}