Food for thought: Eat your way to dementia
- 03 September 2012 by Bijal Trivedi
- Magazine issue 2880. Subscribe and save
- For similar stories, visit the Food and Drink , Mental Health and The Human Brain Topic Guides
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SUZANNE DE LA MONTE's rats were disoriented and confused. Navigating their way around a circular water maze - a common memory test for rodents - they quickly forgot where they were, and couldn't figure out how to locate the hidden, submerged safety platform. Instead, they splashed around aimlessly. "They were demented. They couldn't learn or remember," says de la Monte, a neuropathologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
A closer look at her rats' brains uncovered devastating damage. Areas associated with memory were studded with bright pink plaques, like rocks in a climbing wall, while many neurons, full to bursting point with a toxic protein, were collapsing and crumbling. As they disintegrated, they lost their shape and their connections with other neurons, teetering on the brink of death./.../
As dementia develops, memories of the past slowly slip away (Image: Tips Images/Tips Italia Srl a socio unico/Alamy)
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