Reversal of Alzheimer's Symptoms Achieved Within Minutes

A new study has shown marked improvement in a patient with Alzheimer's disease within minutes of administration of an anti tumor necrosis factor (TNF) therapeutic, a critical component of the brain's immune system.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA, USA) hypothesized that elevated levels of TNF-alpha in Alzheimer's disease interfere with the normal regulation of the transmission of neural impulses in the brain. To reduce this elevated TNF, the authors gave a patient with late-onset Alzheimer's disease an injection of an anti-TNF therapeutic called etanercept. The researchers found rapid cognitive improvement, beginning within minutes. While the study only discusses one patient, many other patients with mild to severe Alzheimer's have received the treatment and all have shown sustained and marked improvement. The study was published ahead of print on January 9, 2008, in the online edition of the Journal of Neuroinflammation.

"Rapid cognitive improvement following perispinal etanercept may be related to amelioration of the effects of excess TNF-alpha on synaptic mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease and provides a promising area for additional investigation and therapeutic intervention,” concluded lead author Edward Tobinick M.D., an assistant clinical professor of medicine at UCLA.
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The study is accompanied by a commentary by Sue Griffin, Ph.D., of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS, Little Rock, USA), who is also co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Neuroinflammation.

"It is unprecedented that we can see cognitive and behavioral improvement in a patient with established dementia within minutes of therapeutic intervention,” said Dr. Griffin. "This gives all of us in Alzheimer's research a tremendous new clue about new avenues of research, which is so exciting and so needed in the field of Alzheimer's. Even though this report predominantly discusses a single patient, it is of significant scientific interest because of the potential insight it may give into the processes involved in the brain dysfunction of Alzheimer's.”

TNF-alpha has recently been recognized to be a gliotransmitter that regulates synaptic function in neural networks and also mediates the disruption in synaptic memory mechanisms, which is caused by beta-amyloid and beta-amyloid oligomers.


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