New Alzheimer's disease pathways identified

Dementia, which encompasses Alzheimer's disease, impacts roughly 1.8 million individuals in Germany. While the precise cause remains elusive, genetics play a pivotal role. Most prior research focused on identifying new Alzheimer's genes using a "case-control design."

Prof. Dr. Lars Bertram led a study that amalgamated data from six Alzheimer's biomarkers, providing a more nuanced genetic analysis. The research pinpointed two primary pathways in Alzheimer's: one associated with amyloid and tau proteins, and another related to the immune system's reaction.

Furthermore, the study shed light on the variance in Alzheimer's occurrence between genders. Specific genes were found to influence Alzheimer's biomarkers differently in men and women, suggesting contrasting genetic risks based on gender.

"With this conventional and highly simplistic analysis strategy, a vast amount of clinical information is lost that can be valuable for elucidating new disease mechanisms," says Prof. Dr. Lars Bertram, head of the Lübeck Interdisciplinary Platform for Genome Analysis at the University of Lübeck and project leader of the now published study.