Hormone Shows Potential as Treatment for Alzheimer's and Stroke

Researchers at Saint Louis University have identified a novel way of delivering a potential treatment for Alzheimer's and stroke into the brain. The brain is protected by the blood-brain barrier, a gate-keeping system of cells that lets in nutrients and keeps out foreign substances.

The blood-brain barrier passes no judgment on which foreign substances are trying to get into the brain to treat Alzheimer's and which are trying to do harm, so it blocks them without discrimination.

The therapy is a hormone produced by the body that is a general neuro-protectant, and is known as PACAP27 (pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide). PACAP27 is a general protector of the brain against many types of insult and injury.

They used mouse models of Alzheimer's disease and stroke to test what would happen if PACAP27 could get into the brain. The scientists isolated the particular gatekeeper than evicts PACAP27. Then they designed an antisense, a specific molecule that turned off the gatekeeper.

Turning off the gatekeeper that kept PACAP27 out of the brain allowed enough of the hormone that already is in the body to get inside the brain, where it effectively treated strokes. The mice that had a version of Alzheimer's needed both an extra dose of PACAP27 and the antisense that turned off the gatekeeper to improve learning.

The symptoms of the disease were reversed and the mice that had Alzheimer’s became smarter and in the stroke model, the amount of damage caused by the blockage of blood to the brain was reduced.

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References:
1. William A. Banks, et al. Hormone shows promise in reversing Alzheimer’s disease and stroke. Saint Louis University. November 2008.
2. Image by Patrick J. Lynch, medical illustrator; C. Carl Jaffe, MD, cardiologist.