{"id":87803,"date":"2019-02-15T17:03:10","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T01:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/brain-discovery-may-explain-mysterious-cell-death-in-alzheimers-parkinsons"},"modified":"2019-02-15T17:03:10","modified_gmt":"2019-02-16T01:03:10","slug":"brain-discovery-may-explain-mysterious-cell-death-in-alzheimers-parkinsons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/brain-discovery-may-explain-mysterious-cell-death-in-alzheimers-parkinsons","title":{"rendered":"Brain discovery may explain mysterious cell death in Alzheimer\u2019s, Parkinson\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/brain-discovery-may-explain-mysterious-cell-death-in-alzheimers-parkinsons2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have identified a potential explanation for the mysterious death of specific brain cells seen in Alzheimer\u2019s, Parkinson\u2019s and other neurodegenerative diseases.<\/p>\n<p>The new research suggests that the <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/cells\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cells<\/a> may die because of naturally occurring <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/gene+variation\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">gene variation<\/a> in brain cells that were, until recently, assumed to be genetically identical. This variation \u2013 called \u201csomatic mosaicism\u201d \u2013 could explain why <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/neurons\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">neurons<\/a> in the <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/temporal+lobe\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">temporal lobe<\/a> are the first to die in Alzheimer\u2019s, for example, and why <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/dopaminergic+neurons\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">dopaminergic neurons<\/a> are the first to die in Parkinson\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis has been a big open question in neuroscience, particularly in various neurodegenerative diseases,\u201d said neuroscientist Michael McConnell of UVA\u2019s Center for Brain Immunology and Glia, or BIG. \u201cWhat is this selective vulnerability? What underlies it? And so now, with our work, the hypotheses moving forward are that it could be that different regions of the brain actually have a different garden of these [variations] in <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/young+individuals\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">young individuals<\/a> and that sets up different regions for decline later in life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2019-02-brain-discovery-mysterious-cell-death.html\">https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2019&#45;02-brain-discovery-m...death.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have identified a potential explanation for the mysterious death of specific brain cells seen in Alzheimer\u2019s, Parkinson\u2019s and other neurodegenerative diseases. The new research suggests that the cells may die because of naturally occurring gene variation in brain cells that were, until recently, assumed to be [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87803","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\/87803","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\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}