{"id":245035,"date":"2026-10-07T21:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T02:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/rare-mutation-may-shield-the-brain-from-alzheimers-damage"},"modified":"2026-10-07T21:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T02:40:13","slug":"rare-mutation-may-shield-the-brain-from-alzheimers-damage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/rare-mutation-may-shield-the-brain-from-alzheimers-damage","title":{"rendered":"Rare Mutation May Shield the Brain From Alzheimer\u2019s Damage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/rare-mutation-may-shield-the-brain-from-alzheimers-damage2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>A rare mutation may keep a major Alzheimer\u2019s risk gene from damaging the brain\u2019s protective barrier.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>About one in five people carries at least one copy of APOE \u03b54, the strongest common genetic risk factor for Alzheimer\u2019s disease. Yet some carriers remain mentally sharp into their 80s. Columbia researchers previously identified a rare variant in the fibronectin gene (FN1) that may help explain their resilience.<\/p>\n<p>Fibronectin helps support the structure of tissues, but too much of it can collect around the brain\u2019s blood vessels in people with APOE \u03b54. The protective variant appears to limit that buildup. A new study in <em><i>Nature Aging<\/i><\/em> investigates why that matters and whether the process could offer a target for treatment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A rare mutation may keep a major Alzheimer\u2019s risk gene from damaging the brain\u2019s protective barrier. About one in five people carries at least one copy of APOE \u03b54, the strongest common genetic risk factor for Alzheimer\u2019s disease. Yet some carriers remain mentally sharp into their 80s. Columbia researchers previously identified a rare variant in [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245035","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}