Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

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Alzheimer’s Cause: Wastes Across the Blood-Brain Barrier?

A new paper and hypothesis for the cause of Alzheimer’s just appeared. Simply, upon aging the blood-brain barrier is disrupted and various chemicals can then get into the brain and thereby cause Alzheimer’s.

This paper proposes a new hypothesis for Alzheimer’s disease (AD)—the lipid invasion model. It argues that AD results from external influx of free fatty acids (FFAs) and lipid-rich lipoproteins into the brain, following disruption of the blood-brain barrier (BBB).

https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-disease-reports/adr210299

Very plausible; accounting for both Alzheimer’s in aging people, and likewise for the disease as a consequence of physical injuries.

Well, then, might this disqualify blarcamesine as an Alzheimer’s treatment or preventative? Not likely, because it is known that blarcamesine, with its activation of the sigma-1 receptor protein, facilitates or normalizes autophagy in neurons, the chemical waste-clearing processes that prevent cellular wastes from disrupting neuron functions. So, whether the wastes are normally generated within the neurons, or anomalously diffuse in, across a leaking blood-brain barrier, if autophagy is fully functional the wastes cannot accumulate and there will be no Alzheimer’s.

With this new paper’s hypothesis, the beta-amyloid etiology of Alzheimer’s is further supported, but with a new mechanism; by a failure of the blood-brain barrier. Neurons with fully-functioning autophagy, supported by blarcamesine, should be able to clear the incursive wastes before they accumulate sufficiently to cause any pathology.