Research details role of neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease
Since the federal government created the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease in 2011, increased attention and research funding have targeted Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
The Center for Perioperative Medicine broadened its scope to include Alzheimer’s disease and dementia research with the recent recruitment of Wei Cao, PhD, a senior expert in neuroinflammation and professor of anesthesiology, who joined from Baylor College of Medicine at the start of 2022.
Cao and her colleagues from Baylor College of Medicine recently published on the prominent role of brain inflammation in Alzheimer’s, “Interferon signaling represents a critical module within the neuroinflammatory network of Alzheimer’s disease and prompts a concerted cellular state that is detrimental to memory and cognition” in advance to the upcoming May 2022 issue of Immunity. This publication is the result of 5 years of research, Cao said.
“The Center for Perioperative Medicine has focused on organ injury during surgery – the lung, kidneys, ARDS, and myocardial injury. We are focused on making surgery safer for patients,” explained Holger Eltzschig, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Anesthesiology, associate vice president for Translational Research and Perioperative Programs, and John P. and Kathrine G. McGovern Distinguished University Chair.
Surgery can lead to delirium and confusion, especially in the elderly, and can exacerbate these existing symptoms.
“We see neurocognitive dysfunction following surgery – especially for patients with underlying brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s,” Eltzschig explained. “With the addition of Dr. Cao as an expert in this area, we have the opportunity to round out the spectrum of our center, taking it to another level.”
Two years ago, Cao’s lab discovered that Type 1 IFN (IFN) signaling, usually a reaction to viral infections, is increased in Alzheimer’s disease brains, with IFN produced around the amyloid plaques.
“This new study is a significant piece of work in both mechanistic understanding and potential translational implications in that they showed how the abnormal IFN presence in the brain severely damages memory and cognitive functions at the molecular and cellular levels,” explained Cynthia Ju, PhD, co-director of the Center for Perioperative Medicine and the Joseph C. Gabel, MD, Endowed Chair in Anesthesiology.
Cao earned her doctorate in biochemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular virology at the Scripps Research Institute.
Alzheimer’s research historically has focused on the brain.
“The field has had a neural-centric view, but over the past decade we have discovered it is not only the neurons but the immune response that might be playing an oversized role in Alzheimer’s,” said Cao, the Roy M. and Phyllis Gough Huffington Distinguished Professor. “Our findings add to this new paradigm – inflammation is really important.”
This new research opens the door to potential treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
“If you block this IFN pathway, what we saw was in presence of amyloid plaques, we can rescue memory impairment and cognitive deficit,” Cao said. “This opens up the possibility of changing the whole perspective and strategies to target Alzheimer’s disease. It’s worthwhile studying more in terms of therapeutics.”