Research Alzheimer's discovery generates novel drug candidate for early intervention

Many people with Alzheimer’s disease start to suffer a loss of the brain’s white matter—a key regulator of cognition—long before their disease is diagnosed. What if this loss could be detected early and stopped?

That’s the goal of a research team led by the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The researchers have identified a protein that, when overexpressed in the brain, causes the degeneration of white matter. And they’ve developed and patented a small-molecule drug that they believe could halt this process.