That said, they’re interesting genes. GFAP is expressed in astrocytes, which are glial cells. These perform a lot of tasks in the brain, but they seem important in protecting neurons from toxic stresses. So, this may give us some additional insight into the role of glial cells like astrocytes in dementia.
Can gene expression be affected by pollutants more common decades ago like abestos, coal-dust or leaded petrol? It would be frustrating to only discover this in 15 years time.
The article (University press release) does mention this... but seeing a known suspect in the biomarker list would lend some confidence to any novel biomarkers found. So, it's good to see multiple studies having similar hits.
One starting point for reading: https://academic.oup.com/clinchem/article/59/1/202/5622131
> Proteins (for example Glial Fibrillary acidic protein, GFAP) had previously been identified as potential biomarkers for dementia in smaller studies, but this new research was much larger and conducted over several years.
^ direct link to the paper.
I understand that press releases are intended for non-technical folks but I don't get the point of this description. Is it assumed that machine learning is less understood than artificial intelligence?
"An early diagnosis is critical for those with dementia. New drug technology can slow, or even reverse the progress of Alzheimer’s, but only if the disease is detected early enough. The drug lecanemab is one of two new treatments for the disease."
Brain is a 'muscle' so keep pushing at it, continuously, you can only help it.
as another random trivia, many animals can often feel or hear an earthquake minutes to days in advance, demonstrated by unusual behavior. This is even less consistent but a phenomenon observed for millenia (wheras we didn't even properly name understand cancer until a few centuries at best).
Is this not a form of spectroscopy?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00028...
nose picking https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10669446/
