Clinical Trial Involves Vasculature in Alzheimer's Disease Prevention

As a psychiatrist, Charlotte Murphy, MD, provides mental health treatment in collaboration with professionals from other specialties. Charlotte Murphy, MD, draws on particular expertise in the care of patients with neurodegenerative disorders, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease.

In the past, potential treatments for Alzheimer's disease have focused on the tau and beta-amyloid proteins that cause the disease's characteristic brain plaques and tangles. Now, however, a group of researchers at the University of Rhode Island have received approval to begin a groundbreaking clinical trial. The trial will test the effectiveness of a drug known as dabigatran against a particular kind of inflammation thought to contribute to Alzheimer's disease development.

Preliminary research has revealed that when blood vessels in the brain suffer damage, that damage can start a process of inflammation that can result in the cell death or damage characteristic of Alzheimer's disease. Scientists hope that the use of dabigatran, already used to reduce stroke and embolism risk for patients with arrhythmia, will help to halt this process. 

According to the chief science officer of the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, the trial is an important step in incorporating the role of the vascular system in Alzheimer's disease.