Proteins found in spinal fluid may be the key to understanding why middle-aged people develop dementia, say scientists in California.
Researchers at U.C. San Francisco say the critical molecules may be just that for people with frontotemporal dementia: the most common form of the brain disorder.
Dementia affects more than six million Americans and accounts for more than 100,000 deaths each year. Researchers estimate that 42 percent of Americans over age 55 will eventually develop dementia.
Frontotemporal dementia affects an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 people in the U.S. It is caused by damage to the lobes at the front or the sides of the brain, and is much more common in younger people than in older people. It is most often diagnosed in people between the ages of 45 and 65.
“If we’re able to identify FTD early on, perhaps using some of the proteins we’ve identified, we can direct patients to the right resources, get them into the right therapeutic trials, and, ultimately, we hope, provide them with precision treatments,” Dr. Rowan Saloner, a professor in the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, said in a statement.
Saloner is the corresponding author of the findings, which were published Friday in the journal Nature Aging.
To reach these conclusions, the authors of the National Institutes of Health-funded study measured more than 4,000 proteins in spinal tap fluid from 116 patients with frontotemporal dementia. The patients had inherited genetic forms of dementia. Non-inherited cases can only be confirmed after death, when the brain is examined.
The researchers then compared the proteins of the participants to those of 39 healthy relatives.
The proteins of those with dementia suggested that they had problems with regulating ribonucleic acid, also known as RNA. RNA regulation is required for the proper expression of genes in the brain. They also hinted at defects that affect connections in their brain. These findings indicate that the proteins could be the first specific biomarkers for frontotemporal dementia as it develops in middle age.
Dementia usually impacts older people, and it can be hard to recognize in middle age. Notably, frontotemporal dementia is often mistaken for depression, schizophrenia, or Parkinson’s disease. Poor metabolic health and other factors are linked to an increased risk of dementia.
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“FTD affects people in the prime of their lives, stripping them of their independence,” Saloner said. “But there’s no definitive way to diagnose it in living patients, unlike other dementias like Alzheimer’s disease.”
