Scottish researchers have identified in cetaceans the “natural development” of lesions similar to those caused by Alzheimer’s neurodegenerative disease, something so far “unique in humans,” explains pathologist Mark Dagleish, one of the participants in the discovery, to Efe.
From autopsies of aging dolphins washed up on the Scottish coast, researchers believe they have uncovered a key to explaining their disorientation and intend to use the discovery to advance our understanding of the disease in humans.
“We saw the same signs of the disease that you would find in people with Alzheimer’s,” explained Dagleish, head of the Department of Pathology at the University of Glasgow and leader of the research published in the European Journal of Neuroscience.
Cautious, the researcher responsible for the post-mortem analysis of the cetaceans points out that it cannot yet be said that the animals suffered from the disease, since in addition to the physical tests, “cognitive deficiencies” must be demonstrated, something that can only be studied “in life “.
The best opportunity for this, argues Mark Dagleish, is the cognitive study of dolphins that are in captivity or in a zoo, because their keepers “know when the animals have some change in their behavior, habits or responses.”
Researcher Tara Spiers-Jones, head of the area of neurodegeneration at the University of Edinburgh, undertook the task of looking for similarities between lesions in the brain of cetaceans and humans.
According to the researcher, these similarities were found in three different species of dolphins, in which the coexistence of amyloid plaques was detected, “a phenomenon that occurs in healthy people as they age”, together with “neurofibrillary tangles”, the other necessary ingredient to develop dementia.
The plaques are a consequence of the brain’s inability to clear amyloid protein secretion from neurons, while the tangles are due to the pathological accumulation of tau protein, the accumulation of which is the key to neurodegeneration.
The symptoms detected in cetaceans “resemble the early stages of Alzheimer’s in humans and not its full final stage,” Tara Spiers-Jones explained to the Spanish news agency EFE.
The research team, made up of experts from the Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Glasgow, is now focused on “getting more funding” to be able to expand their tests, which have so far been carried out on 22 specimens, added Mark Dagleish.
The pathologist wonders if the finding could explain the large number of cetaceans that appear stranded on the beaches: “Why does that happen, when most of the animals are apparently healthy?”
The researcher explained that some of these animals “live in family groups” and “if one of them gets sick, the others feed him” and that is why no one is left behind due to the cohesion of the group.
Typically, the leader is already of advanced age and “many times” is “an adult female” who, when developing the disease, can lose “the ability to understand where she is in three dimensions, very important in the life of a dolphin “said, for your turn, Spiers-Jones.
“He gets sick, gets disoriented,” he describes, “and ends up in the wrong place, at the wrong time,” on a “shallow beach at high tide,” running aground soon after.
Mark Dagleish highlights the importance of this discovery for wild dolphin species: “It could give us an idea [da doença de Alzheimer] and reveal what are the first changes it causes”, something that could allow “a better diagnosis of people”.
Source: TSF
