Alzheimer’s May Have An Unlikely Hero, The Ground Squirrel

Alzheimer's is considered to be one of the crueler diseases that families and friends of loved ones must go through. They sit and watch as the person they love slowly stops being who they are, stops recognizing them and finally, stops being able to function. All the while, the body is relatively unscathed, so dad or grandma might look fine, they just don't know who you are anymore. Medical science has been able to slow down some of this progression, but the disease is still winning ground quickly and there isn't always much to be done. The chances of developing Alzheimer's rises as your birthdays rack up too, so once you hit a certain age, the anger of not finding your keys each morning turns from a quirky habit, to a worrisome pattern.<br />
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New insight to <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=arctic-ground-squirrel-brain" title="Wake up for spring">hibernating animals, specifically the Artic Ground Squirrel </a>might hold some clues as how to reverse the effects of Alzheimer's in the brain. These animals effectively shut down during the winter, leaving their brain supercool and running on almost nothing. What happens with humans in these conditions is death, cut off the supply of oxygen or blood to the brain, cool it to too low of a temperature and there is no coming back from it. These squirrels and other mammals do with no adverse effects. Something about their genetic make-up allows them to shake off the hibernation, and regenerate what they have lost. During hibernations, the brain cells and pathways constrict, as if conserving together. Once the squirrel wakes up, the brain goes through an activity like a jump-start, re-connecting the dendrites and neurons that it lost during sleep. If scientists are able to find out how this is done, focusing on a special protein Tau, which is known to have build up in Alzheimer's patients, then it is possible that they might be able to reverse the stages of Alzheimer's.