r/science • u/Wagamaga • Oct 08 '24

Neuroscience Brain’s waste-clearance pathways revealed for the first time. Wastes include proteins such as amyloid and tau, which have been shown to form clumps and tangles in brain images of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

https://news.ohsu.edu/2024/10/07/brains-waste-clearance-pathways-revealed-for-the-first-time
30.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

658 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.9k

u/Squibbles01 Oct 08 '24

My guess is that we're going to discover that Alzheimer's is basically the degradation of this cleaning system. I've seen studies where Alzheimer's patients have say too much aluminum in their brain, and I think that in most cases they probably weren't exposed to too much of it, but that they just couldn't clear it out like a normal brain would.

0

u/real_bro Oct 08 '24

I've seen two other theories: 1. It's a metabolic disease 2. It's an autoimmune disease. I actually find these two to be more plausible than what you're suggesting.