Study conducted by researchers from the GIGA CRC In vivo Imaging laboratory at ULiège demonstrates, for the first time in humans, how the first deposits of tau proteins in the brainstem are associated with neurophysiological processes specific to the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease development.
During the pre-clinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease, i.e. when subtle changes are taking place in the brain but no cognitive symptoms can be observed, the cortex presents a state of transient hyperexcitability. To date, several studies conducted in animals have shown that tau and beta-amyloid proteins — central to the development of Alzheimer’s disease — were associated with increased cortical excitability and dysfunction of brain networks. However, the relationship between the accumulation of Alzheimer’s disease-related proteins and cortical hyperexcitability during the earliest…
