4 ms·
Not sure why scientists has to pin point a single cause where as you have different vectors that can cause the same disease is also plausible
by m3kw9 3y ago
Not sure why scientists has to pin point a single cause where as you have different vectors that can cause the same disease is also plausible
- pedalpete 3y agoOr that we've been lumping multiple different types of cognitive decline as a single disease.
- hmottestad 3y agoCan’t you make a definitive diagnosis from an autopsy. Could be that multiple diseases lead to the same findings in the autopsy. While someone is alive a diagnosis of Alzheimers is more of a diagnosis of elimination. There are several drugs that can be used to slow the progression and I assume that those have a role to play in solidifying the diagnosis.
- hackernewds 3y agoThat ventures wildly into whether the realm of physicalism explains malaises that happen in the "consciousness" realm. spooky
- tsimionescu 3y agoYou can check for amyloid plaques in an autopsy, but apparently plenty of old people that show no significant cognitive decline also have amyloid plaques. So, while we would definitively call it Alzheimer's if you have significant cognitive decline + amyloid plaques, it's not 100% clear that this is a single diagnostic.
- arcticfox 3y agoThey don't, but my surface understanding is that the medicines that effectively nuke beta amyloid have no effect overall. Which would mean it's not even one of many causes, it seems to not be a cause at all.
- tim333 3y agoI think the medicines likely reduce beta amyloid rather than get rid of all of it which if it has a prion like mechanism wouldn't really fix things.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y agoScientists are a bit more savvy than you are giving them credit. Anything neurological is unlikely to have a silver bullet treatment. So researchers are going after what looks most promising with respect to understanding the disease as well as a path towards treatment. Which is currently AB (or Tau), but there is plenty of skepticism that we are chasing the only measurement we have. Yet many other correlations are even hazier than AB.
- resoluteteeth 3y agoI don't think scientists are necessarily assuming a single cause so much as that it's a moot point since we still haven't identified any causes for sure. If some cases are caused by amyloid plaques and some aren't, for example, and we develop a treatment that cures the amyloid plaque cases but not the others, it will probably become extremely obvious that there are different causes at that point.