Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia in the
world, affecting more than 26 million people. Creutzfeld-Jacob
disease (CJD), another affliction is far less common, but both
conditions share many of the same qualities. They are fatal
within a few years of diagnosis, they are incurable and they
involved the crippling degeneration of the brain’s neurons. Now,
a group of Yale researchers have discovered that the two
diseases are also linked by a pair of critical proteins. Look
into the brain of someone with Alzheimer’s disease and you will
see large, insoluble “plaques” sitting between nerve cells. They
consist of a protein fragment (or “peptide”) called amyloid-
beta, accumulating in its thousands. These plaques are a
hallmark of the disease, but even before they have formed,
amyloid-beta peptides have already begun to cluster in small
soluble groups. Even at this stage, they can impair memory,
degrading the connections between separate neurons. Juha Lauren
wanted to work out how exactly clusters