Health

Reversible Alzheimer's damage? What happened when one protein was blocked in mice brains

For years doctors have known that the brain's blood vessels deteriorate in carriers of APOE4, the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's, without understanding why. A study by researchers at Mount Sinai, which mapped genetic activity in about 66,000 cells from 220 brains, found that the gene turns the vascular mural cells into scar‑forming cells that promote amyloid accumulation. Prof. Joel Benshard: "It's an active process, and it may be reversible."