• @carpe_modo
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    52 years ago

    I am certainly no expert, so don’t take my words as absolute truth. That being said, I’ve had reason to educate myself as much as possible on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. When suffering from these diseases, protein strands stop acting like small strings of protein and start tangling up on themselves forming knots. These knots get caught up in the ends of neutrons and cause damage to them. It seems like there may be two different ways this medicine is working. The first is that it’s blocking the tangled protein strands from catching on the neurons. This is how a lot of different medications work. Put something in the way to stop destructive processes. The second is that it’s possibly strengthening the neurons so that the tangled protein strands aren’t causing as much damage as they normally would.

    There have been ultrasonic techniques developed that look like they are capable of breaking up the tangled protein strands, but I haven’t read of any chemical methods to do so. That kind of thing may be part of the treatment offered by the multidisciplinary team they talk about, though.

    • @whoamiOP
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      12 years ago

      thank you for the response. I started this thread because I found that the original article was a little lacking, especially when you consider how ground breaking such a treatment would be.