A team of researchers at the University of Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry, supported by the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (OH BRC), has discovered Alzheimer’s disease-related proteins in cervical lymph nodes.
These proteins were found in higher quantities in younger people, suggesting that the drainage from the brain becomes less effective with age, potentially leading to the build-up associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
This is the first direct evidence of such ‘brain bins’ in humans, previously only seen in mouse models. The findings indicate that lymph nodes play a critical role in draining brain proteins, which could be significant for understanding Alzheimer’s disease causes and developing new treatments.
The team is now recruiting participants for a larger study to further explore these mechanisms and their impact on Alzheimer’s disease risk and treatment efficacy. The study is called Neuroimmune mechanisms in brain health – ‘ANIMATE’.
Read the full story on the Department of Psychiatry website.
