Nasal Spray Improves Cognitive Function in Mice With Dementia
The results of anew study reveal that a pioneering nasal spray treatment has been effective in eliminating harmful tau protein accumulation in mice with dementia, boosting their cognitive abilities.
It only took a single dose of the spray to significantly reduce the tau protein buildup—a key factor in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, providing hope for new therapies that may be effective in humans.
Understanding the Dementia Research
The experiment comes from a team of researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch, who note that their findings align with a study published in the March 30, 2023 edition of the journal Science. That study found that TRIM21, an intracellular receptor, is essential for effective tau immunotherapy.
For the more recent study, the researchers introduced a monoclonal tau antibody called TTCM2 which targeted the tau deposits in the post-mortem brain tissue from patients with:
• Alzheimer’s
• dementia with Lew bodies
• progressive supranuclear palsy
They discovered that the TTCM2 antibody interacts with TRIM21 and seemed to prevent the spread of tau fibrils among neurons. It only took one nasal dose to reduce the tau pathology and improve cognition.
“Our study shows that the nasal tau immunotherapy importantly reverses Alzheimer’s pathology in mice and a single dose is enough to achieve this,” says first author Dr. Sagar Gaikwad of the Department of Neurology at The Mitchell Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of Texas Medical Branch. “This also improves memory and behavior in aged mice. Importantly, our TTCM2 antibody effectively recognizes and neutralizes pathological tau in the brain tissues from patients with Alzheimer’s disease.”
According to Gaikwad, the findings could lead to the development of new treatments that reverse or delay the onset of severe symptoms in people with Alzheimer’s and related dementia.
Getting treatments into the brain has been a challenge for scientists because the blood-brain barrier blocks many—but not all—substances.
“The researchers used an immunotherapy treatment that reduces the amount of dysfunctional tau in the brains of mice as well as prevents the production of ‘tau seeds,’ which allow the dysfunction to spread through the brain,” explains Dr. Jason Krellman, an associate professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University Irving Medicinal Center who was not involved in the study. “The researchers managed to circumvent this barrier by using a novel method of administration, delivery through the nose to be sure absorption by the brain was rapid and more complete. [It’s] especially promising [because] the mice showed improvement in cognitive function via their behavioral response in tests that assess recognition memory and spatial awareness.”
The Road Ahead for Alzheimer’s Treatment
No doubt, this is an incredible exciting breakthrough, but it’s important to remember that mouse models may respond differently than humans. The human brain is bigger, has biological differences in metabolism, and may produce different side effects or behavioral responses than the mouse brain. Human clinical trials will be needed and those will take much longer.
But the findings are incredibly encouraging and certainly offer some hope for potential new therapeutic deliveries in the fight against Alzheimer’s.
The results of this recent study were published in the July 3, 2024 edition of the journal Science Translational Medicine.
MBJ
Wendy Burt-Thomas writes about the brain, mental health and parenting.
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