The purpose of the joint meeting of the academies was
to take stock of risk factors, prevention strategies, diagnostics, and novel
therapeutic hopes and approaches in Alzheimer's disease.
Age-related neurodegenerative pathologies such as
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases are characterized by the appearance of
aggregates of proteins in the central nervous system. The composition and the
distribution of the protein aggregates in the brain differ from one disease to
another. The team headed by Ronald Melki demonstrated that once formed, the
protein aggregates spread in the central nervous system in an infection-like
manner. At the joint meeting, he discussed a range of points that enable a
better experimental understanding of the proteinopathic nature of these
diseases. The protein aggregates are deleterious from the start, as soon as
they affix to the neuron. They grow and propagate from neuron to neuron by
entering the cells via a particular mechanism and thereafter travelling along
axons.
Ronald Melki also detailed how the aggregation
of a same protein in different configurations results in distinct
neurodegenerative diseases and why different therapeutic approaches are needed
to target the propagation of these variable pathological protein aggregates.
Since 2019, the Bulletin of the National Academy of Medicine is edited in partnership with Elsevier-Masson. The Academy's complete reports are available on its website. Other texts can be obtained on the EM consulte website. (French links)
http://www.academie-medecine.fr/agenda/seance-commune-academie-nationale-de-pharmacie-academie-nationale-de-medecine/
"Infectious hypothesis: Alois Alzheimer and other
neurodegenerative diseases," by Ronald Melki