New Brain-Protecting Compound Works in Rats; Could Make Alzheimer's a Distant Memory

07-10-2010 • Clay Dillow

Researchers at Texas Southwestern Medical Center have discovered a compound that could potentially render Alzheimer's a thing of the past. After testing 1,000 different molecules on the memory hubs of rats suffering from memory loss, scientists there have come up with a compound that protects memory-forming cells in the hippocampus, which could lead to promising treatments for Alzheimer's and other memory affecting disorders.

Memories are made possible by a process called neurogenesis, which spawns and maintains neurons in the brain's hippocampus region (specifically in the dentate gyrus). These particular neurons are delicate, and even in young healthy brains a 10 percent survival rate is pretty good. Introduce Alzheimer's into the equation, and that survival rate plummets to nearly zero, causing an inability to produce and maintain memories.

But one of the compounds the TSMC researchers found, dubbed P7C3, was found to protect those valuable cells from the ravages of Alzheimer's, strengthening their defenses and keeping them around long enough to become players in the memory production process. The team first tested the compound on rats engineered to have memory problems, then on aging rats whose memory problems had developed naturally. In both cases, P7C3 somehow steeled those memory-forming neurons against memory loss.