Alzheimer’s Disease Protein Spreads Through Neurons in Mice

Alzheimer’s appears to spread through the brain like poison in a river, according to a study that's the first to track the destruction caused by an abnormal protein implicated in the disease.

Researchers created genetically engineered mice with abnormal tau protein in the brain’s entorhinal cortex, the first place the substance shows up in people with Alzheimer’s, according to a paper in the journal PLoS One. From there, they mapped the mouse brains over 22 months as the tau spread across neurons within the organ to other regions.