Could Alzheimer's be Transmissible?

[ABSTRACT]

Is it possible for Alzheimer’s to be transmitted by tissue or fluid transfers between people? Last September, John Collinge, a British professor of neurology, raised this possibility in a controversial paper published in the journal Nature.

In this paper, Collinge reported on the autopsy of four of patients who had been injected with human growth hormone (HGH) as children and who subsequently contracted Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). He found that all four not only had prions, but also amyloid beta plaques, considered a hallmark for Alzheimer’s. He posited that tissue of a donor could contain transmittable “seeds” of Abeta protein, which over time would result in the development of Alzheimer’s in the recipient.

There are profound implications if this possibility is borne out. However, it is important to note that none of the patients autopsied had any tau protein, increasingly considered necessary for Alzheimer's expression, nor did any of the patients show signs of cognitive impairment. Further, medical science has advanced to the point where cadaver derived substances, such as the HGH used on the four patients in question, have been replaced with synthetic versions.

Nonetheless, scientists around the world have been working to verify Collinge's findings. In January, scientists in Switzerland announced that they had examined the brains of 7 subjects who had received surgical grafts of cadaver derived dura - membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord, all of whom developed CJD. They discovered that 5 of the 7 also had Abeta deposits in their brains.

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