In connection with the increase in life expectancy of the population, more and more people today suffering from senile dementia. Scientists from Cambridge University (UK) carried out a study to try to better understand the nature of this as yet incurable disease. They found that the cause of dementia can be genetic mutation in certain brain cells.
The results of a study published in the journal Nature Communications. Scientists write in it that science still does not understand why some people with age, is faced with senile dementia, while others did not. According to the researchers, dementia has a genetic background, but heredity, this feature is not reflected in 5% of cases of dementia it becomes clear that the problem is inherited from parents.
“Most of the cases of dementia may not be associated with hereditary factors and with the advent of new “point” mutations in a small set of genes in individual cells of the brain,” suggested in the end, the creators of the work.
Previously, scientists have extracted 600 thousand cells extracted from samples of people suffering from the dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, DNA samples and read each of them five thousand times. They were able to perform, what is the distribution of small mutations in different parts of the brain. As a result, the researchers found that mutations that lead to dementia, not necessarily inherited from the parents. This allows you to better understand why many people become victims of Alzheimer’s disease without having a family with this disorder.
“Mutations occur in DNA during cell division. They are formed during brain development of the fetus, and “sitting in ambush”, waiting for when their owner will grow old,” the scientists explained the nature of these mutations.
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