One of the great mysteries surrounding the hitherto incurable Alzheimer’s disease is why 70 percent of those affected are women and why the course is, on average, more serious for them than for men. Now it is said that a certain hormone should be responsible for this – this is indicated by experiments with rodents. A team led by neuroscientist Keqiang Ye from Emory University School of Medicine made his findings in a study published in Nature magazine.
Shortly before the last menstrual period in a woman’s life – this is the beginning of the menopause – the pituitary gland releases increased levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). At the same time, the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s often set in. Estrogen from the ovaries, on the other hand, which has long been traded as a possible trigger for dementia, remains constant at the time. Ye and his colleagues hypothesize that FSH interacts with the C/EBPβ/AEP signaling pathway, which is central to the development of Alzheimer’s pathology. To test their theory, the group removed the ovaries from laboratory mice with dementia and then used antibodies to block FSH. As the team was able to demonstrate, this inactivated the signaling pathway in the nerve cells.
Not only that: the plaques in the brains of the Alzheimer’s mice receded, and the cognitive symptoms also disappeared. In another series of experiments, the team injected FSH into both female and male rodents. This in turn made the disease worse and plaques formed in the hippocampus and other regions. The results indicate that the FSH hormone plays an important role in the development of Alzheimer’s via the C/EBPβ/AEP signaling pathway. Since men also secrete more FSH with increasing age, the researchers hope to be able to test a treatment for both sexes in the future that uses this hormone.