4 ms·
This paper only shows that brain-like lab grown tissue develops Amyloid-beta plaques (known to occur in patients with AD) to combat mircobial i.e. viral attack.
by seesawtron 6y ago
This paper only shows that brain-like lab grown tissue develops Amyloid-beta plaques (known to occur in patients with AD) to combat mircobial i.e. viral attack.
There are a low of assumptions here:
(1) Organoid tissue represents human-brain. Human (and mammalian) brain is a much more complex entity to be even remotely similar to this.
(2) We do not know how amyloid-beta plaques are related to Alzheimer's Disease (AD) i.e. whether they are the cause of AD or a symptom that occurs when one has AD. All we know is the existence of these plauqes can occur before the symptoms of AD are seen (even upto 30 years before you are diagnoised with AD). Whether removal of plaques makes you AD free is a mystery.
(3) HSV/Herpes virus might not be the only cause of formation of amyloid plauqes. There are tons of other microbial infections that have been shown to cause increase of plaques.
But more research into the microbial theory of AD is definitely something that would shed more light on the interplay between microbes and the brain.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoAll true, correlation does not equal causation, but it's still fun to speculate when it looks like there might be a relatively inexpensive path (ie a vaccine we're going to develop anyway) to success.
- seesawtron 6y agoIt is fun indeed to speculate that. One could even use this line of "imagination" to get big Pharma interested in investing in this line of fundamental research which, as we have been reminded more recently, is extremely crucial.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoI tend to feel like "fun speculation" around new science research feeds loads of incorrect information being spread. Which makes it not fun to me at all.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoIf you're getting your health information solely from Hacker News, without any additional research or critical thinking, you should probably not do that. I'm not a domain expert (Virologist or otherwise in medicine), nor do I pretend to be, and I qualified my statement at the top of the thread ("might"). Everything else in my comment was factual.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoI just don’t think wild speculation about science is fun. What is fun to me about science is fact based exploration. Hypothesis is great and conjecture has its place, but wild conjecture is not fun to me. You can feel otherwise and that’s okay!
- toomuchtodo 6y agoI don't believe my original comment was wild conjecture (although it did lack a citation how I arrived at the hypothesis), but in keeping with your ideals as it relates to putting forth a thesis in a public forum: > We believe that HSV1 is a major contributory factor for Alzheimer’s disease and that it enters the brains of elderly people as their immune system declines with age. It then establishes a latent (dormant) infection, from which it is reactivated by events such as stress, a reduced immune system and brain inflammation induced by infection by other microbes. > Excitingly, successful prevention of Alzheimer’s disease by use of specific anti-herpes agents has now been demonstrated in a large-scale population study in Taiwan. Hopefully, information in other countries, if available, will yield similar results. https://theconversation.com/alzheimers-disease-mounting-evidence-that-herpes-virus-is-a-cause-104943 https://theconversation.com/alzheimers-disease-mounting-evid... (Alzheimer’s disease: mounting evidence that herpes virus is a cause) The author of the post is Ruth Itzhaki, Professor Emeritus of Molecular Neurobiology, University of Manchester This (in my opinion) would lead a reasonable person to believe that an HSV-1 vaccine would prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s (through the prevention of an HSV-1 infection), in a similar fashion to how the HPV vaccine prevents (among other cancers) cervical cancer. I hope you have found some value in this subthread.