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Credit: St. Michael’s College
Researchers from Saint Michael’s College and the University of Vermont have made a groundbreaking new discovery that provides a better understanding of how Alzheimer’s disease develops in the human brain.
Guided by previous research of spider brains, the scientists uncovered evidence of a “waste canal system” in the human brain that internalizes waste from healthy neurons. They discovered that this system can undergo catastrophic swelling, which leads to the degeneration of brain tissue, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
With over 50 million affected people worldwide, Alzheimer’s disease is among the leading causes of death in the U.S.
The findings, which have been published by “The Journal of Comparative Neurology,” offer a compelling new explanation for commonly described brain pathologies observed in Alzheimer’s disease, including amyloid-beta plaques, tau tangles, and spongiform abnormalities.
Supported by the Vermont Biomedical Research Network (VBRN), the research was carried out in collaboration among Dr. Ruth Fabian-Fine (Saint Michael’s College, UVM Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine), Dr. John DeWitt (UVM Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine, UVM Medical Center), Dr. Adam Weaver (Saint Michael’s College), and Saint Michael’s undergraduate research students Abigail Roman and Melanie Winters, both members of the Class of 2025.
“The Vermont Biomedical Network has been thrilled to support Dr. Fabian-Fine’s research from its initial focus on animal neuroscience to the more recent and potentially groundbreaking emphasis on the cellular basis of human neurodegeneration,” said UVM’s Dr. Christopher Francklyn, the Director of VBRN. “Her exciting work, and the outstanding training she has provided to her undergraduate co-investigators, epitomizes what NIH hopes to accomplish with its national IDEA program.”
Neuroscientist Dr. Fabian-Fine and her team initially investigated the underlying causes for neurodegeneration in Central American wandering spiders that suffer from conditions similar to degenerative diseases in humans. Because the spider neurons were a larger size, the scientists were better able to observe their brain functions. They quickly discovered a waste-internalizing glial canal system that undergoes structural abnormalities in degenerating spider brains, which leads to uncontrolled depletion and death of brain cells.
This discovery prompted Fabian-Fine, a Vermont Center for Cardiovascular and Brain Health Pipeline Investigator, to explore whether a similar system could be found in both rodent and human brain tissue, so she teamed up with neuropathologist Dr. DeWitt at UVM’s Larner College of Medicine. The collaborative undertaking led the scientists to gather overwhelming evidence that neurodegeneration in human and rodent brains may have similar underlying causes compared to those observed in spider brains. The scientists’ report outlines possible underlying causes for neurodegeneration that may offer a promising new avenue for drug development that can address the structural abnormalities that lead to neurodegeneration.
Dozens of student researchers at Saint Michael’s College contributed to the multi-year research that provided the foundation for this breakthrough. Experiments occurred at Saint Michael’s College, the University of Vermont Medical Center, and at the UVM’s Center for Biomedical Shared Resources.
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You will have a spiders Alzheimer brain after your immune system has been destroyed from taking the COVID KILL SHOT. They need more grants to study this and come up with new patients for more drugs. Got to wonder who is buying stocks in big pharma.
I would like to point to the recent appointment of Elon Musk to get rid off all the waste in government (besides Tesla and Starlink subsidies obviously) that the people like him and some readers here that make fun of the stories of government funding like this or what did Elon say, “giving cocaine to pigeons to see how they fly” that often these “ridiculous” studies we don’t understand because we’re not scientists. Often they lead to great breakthroughs that we as Americans take for granted. Wegovy, something I’m sure a reader or two here is on, was discovered when a scientist was researching how gila monster venom was metabolized in mice. Gone under Elon. There are a myriad of drugs and procedures we have learned from such “wasteful” studies, but hey they make for a great headline.
If you love the cocaine studies so much, why didn’t you start a gofundme, and put your own money into a private grant system, without waiting for a politician to do it for you? You prefer to outsource chronic violence and coercion to get everything you support?
If we paid for all these wonderful studies to develop drugs, why do only private companies get to have a monopoly on manufacturing and distributing them? Interesting, the medical system was the number one cause of death for several years in a row. Seems like a worthwhile investment.
The point, Chris, is that this is an ‘announcement’ of findings that may, or may not, lead to anything practical. As the saying goes – even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time. But the fact is, these studies, more often than not, don’t lead to ‘great breakthroughs’.
After all, Wegovy is a weight loss drug for couch potatoes who have become addicted to the sugar and additive laden food sold in the U.S., and nowhere else. And consider Wegovy’s side effects – taken from the Wegovy web site.
Nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, stomach pain, headache, tiredness, indigestion, bloating, burping, low blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes, gas and flatulence, gastroenteritis, and heartburn.
And THEN there are the ‘serious’ side effects, including pancreatitis, gallbladder disease, hypoglycemia, kidney problems, serious allergic reactions, increased heart rate, suicidal thoughts or behavior, eye complications in type 2 diabetic patients (diabetic retinopathy), and liquid or food getting into the lungs during deep sedation or anesthesia, allergic reactions, unusual mood changes, thoughts about hurting yourself; pounding heartbeats or fluttering in your chest; a light-headed feeling, like you might pass out; signs of a thyroid tumor – swelling or a lump in your neck, trouble swallowing, a hoarse voice, feeling short of breath; symptoms of pancreatitis – severe pain in your upper stomach spreading to your back, nausea with or without vomiting, fast heart rate; gallbladder problems – upper stomach pain, fever, clay-colored stools, jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes); low blood sugar – headache, hunger, weakness, sweating, confusion, irritability, dizziness, fast heart rate, or feeling jittery; kidney problems – swelling, urinating less, feeling tired or short of breath, or stomach flu symptoms – stomach cramps, vomiting, loss of appetite, diarrhea (may be watery or bloody).
As Milton Friedman said: “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”
And then we have people like Elon Musk and his Tesla automobiles, Space X, and Starlink. Musk, who bought Twitter, fired 80% of the staff, and turned it into a legitimate communications platform.
And you think that this initial study of spider brains justifies the waste and corruption propagated by big pharma and big agriculture as they make you sick and then supply a cure more dangerous than the disease itself.
‘Most people don’t believe they’ve been indoctrinated and lied to precisely because they’ve been indoctrinated and lied to.’
For H. Jay.
Elon Musk’s companies wouldn’t exist without massive government grants and subsidies. I can’t believe how many people put this guy on a pedestal when he nothing more than smoke and mirrors and a tool for the establishment.
His whole Pro-Conservative schtick is such an obvious scam.
H. Jay….but you are 1000% correct about Wegovy.
You don’t get something for nothing and the side effects from this drug are horrific. I can’t wait to see what the spider drugs do to people.
Re: Alzheimer’s…there is a correlation between Aluminum exposure and the disease and guess what is in most injections? The whole ‘Vaccine’ Industry is an evil scam.
“Aluminum is used as an adjuvant in some vaccines to enhance the immune response and reduce the amount of vaccine required to provide immunity. It has been a part of vaccine formulations for over 70 years.”
Cheers!
Alex A: In today’s world, true free markets don’t exist anywhere. Energy, Big Ag, Big Pharma, the military industrial complex crowd (Boeing, Raytheon, Halliburton, you name it), not to mention the healthcare insurance industry. But there’s a huge difference between ‘government subsidies’ and winning government contracts.
Yes, EV vehicles are, and have been, heavily (and in my opinion, overly) subsidized. But ask yourself – given all of the subsidies out there, which EV company is dominating the market?
And then we have Space X, Starlink, and Twitter X – companies that compete successfully with a variety of private companies.
Would you rather have someone like Elon Musk taking a shot at the DOGE program or leaving the task to the usual suspects… the congress and all of the K-street lobbyists pulling their puppet strings? Would you rather FEMA provide internet access to the hurricane ravaged folks in North Carolina or Starlink? Hello. FEMA couldn’t do anything efficiently with all the subsidies in the world. But Musk’s Starlink did – as a freebee.
Proof, as always, is in the pudding. And, so far at least, Musk is the best cook out there.
Drugs like Wegovy are poison. They slow gastric emptying and result in hypervillification of the small intestine. Soon there will be “if you took wygovy, mongaro etc and suffered injury or death you may be entitled to significant financial compensation”. There is no easy way to lose weight. Show some discipline and exercise.
Back when Sarah Palin was a thing, she was smeared in the media for critiquing medical research using fruit flies. Whether it was true or knot, the media made it sound like she took issue with spending tax dollars to improve the health of fruit flies. I would have hoped that no one would similarly and simplistically make light of these researchers apparently “helping out” spiders with dementia. Insects, animals, bacteria etc are very useful models for basic medical research as they all share certain aspects of their anatomy and physiology with us humans. Tarantulas are often used for muscle disease research because they have very long muscle fibers. Apparently, these spiders have useful brain neurons for studying and using spiders doesn’t get most animal rights activist’s panties in a knot. The point is that this may be extremely valuable research which may benefit literally millions of people and is likely worthy of taxpayer resources. If it were up to me, I would take all taxpayer funding of narcan and grant it toward dementia research.
Rich
I agree with your opinion on funding for dementia.
The presentation and access to the research is another great contribution by VDC.
It is good to see some science reporting in the VDC. Too bad the photos in this article didn’t show something more technical about the study instead of the researcher just squirting water and looking at her spiders…
I’ll take this as a little bit of good new in the fight against Alzheimer’s. It’s a personal issue to me as it killed my father 5 years ago.
Timing is everything with breaking news. Cures and patients for new drugs can be in place ten years in advance waiting for the need for there use. Warp speed equals warped mind and body.
C.S. Lewis, celebrated lay Catholic theologian: “Man was appointed by God to have dominion over beasts, and everything a man does to an animal is either a lawful exercise or a sacrilegious abuse of authority by divine right”.
Hunting for sustenance? Lawful.
Trapping & torturing for “sport” or “tradition”? A sacrilegious abuse.
Mitt Romney cited that after he was caught strapping his dog to the roof of the car as the family drove across Canada
i think he was Episcopalian. He buddy Tolkien was Catholic.
Guy: C.S. Lewis was an atheist in his early adult life and only later embraced Christianity, joining the Anglican Church.
Of course, what this has to do with performing autopsies on Central American wandering spiders suffering from conditions similar to degenerative diseases in humans, I’m not sure. Consider this from the ‘Waste Clearance and Neurodegeneration’ study’s description of Materials and Methods.
“All procedures relating to spider care and experimental treatments conformed to NIH and Institutional guidelines and were conducted with the approval of the Saint Michael’s College Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC).”
With regard to the related human brain research; it “complies with Health and Human Services Regulation 45 CFR 46.102(e) and The University of Vermont regulations regarding human subjects research.”
But more to the point still, is what does any of this have to do hunting and trapping for sport, or with Elon Musk being tasked with reducing governmental waste? Don’t the perpetrators do all of the above ‘for sustenance’?
…and thanks to the Obama-friendly lamestream media, that’s about all that is remembered now about Mitt Romney, who could have been a good president. Was so delicious to see that democrat-friendly media really step in a big, stinking pile of it over the last few months…
Just an fyi, Dog sled people put their whole team in kennels on the back of truck, it’s more dependent upon how well the dog was strapped than if it was abused. It used to be ok for kids to stand up in the back of the pickup truck and drive around town, it was, get this….FUN.
I don’t think I’d strap him to the top of the car…..but was he warm, was in in the summer, was it done securely? Last I knew, dogs loved to stick their heads out of car windows, perhaps it was the best trip the dog ever experienced, smelling everything as they drove by.
In the Dog world, he may be legend….too funny. There is certainly no shortage of things to fight about and stupid things that man has done; these are pretty constant.
May we be filled with the Holy Spirit instead. TGBTG
Guy, Mittens is a Mormon, that was his whole gimmick. As for you Jay, we moved on, if you’re going to interrupt to let us know how smart you are like always, try to keep up.
The E. V.. battery ten thousand dollar car is in production in China thanks to the China subsidies and will stop Elon Musk. Stop wasting taxpayers money on this public private partner crap.
I wonder if the spiders had flouride, bleach, chlorine, or PFAS in their drinking water? I wonder if they used sugar substitutes or their diets consisted of gmo additives or other toxic additives? Did these spiders suffer co-morbidities and were they up to date on their shots?
There was a time when “experts” opined the brain diseases were caused by plaque deposits – then procedeed to require testing cholesteral, don’t eat eggs or hot dogs, and prescribed medication that required blood work every year because of damage to the liver. Some others opined cardio-vascular issues were the culprit. They advised stop eating butter, and prescribed pills for that as well. It is all about medicating for life, taxing livers and kidneys to mask symptoms, and make huge profitiable bank on all of it.
Hey climate activists, did you know Rockefeller Medicine is all about those horrible petro products? Instead of burning those fuels, they make billions, upon billions of pills, the bottles holding those pills, and all the medical machinery out of all that dirty energy! Crazy huh? Here’s your sign. Why not protest and occupy Rockefeller Center? Standard Oil started the whole medical misery and disease business.
UVM and all medical schools are the benefactors and purveyors of such deeds done dirty. It’s not about health – it’s about turning humans into free range lab rats and customers for life. Testing labs and bio-development labs – like Wuhan – crimes against humanity.
But of course, there is NO wasteful spending, just doesn’t exist. Too funny. Meanwhile there is a doctor who has gotten results and REVERSED Alzheimer’s……without drugs, specifically. But we don’t hear that report do we? Big Pharma makes no money off it. Coincidentally pesticides, herbicides, preservatives, chemicals, etc, have been found to be the root cause of Alzheimer’s.
This study could be useful.
We could trim the budget, heavily.
We could address the health of Americans in particular.
We could be healthier
These things are not mutually exclusive.
Do not worry, the former C. E. O. of United Health Care will solve all your problems. This should be a subject for next week.