With a new $710,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, an Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientist will study the role of a family of immune cells in Alzheimer’s disease.
Bill Freeman, Ph.D., will investigate the connection between Alzheimer’s and the brain’s primary immune cells, known as microglia. These cells maintain brain health by clearing out damaged neurons and other waste.
Freeman and other scientists are trying to understand whether microglia play a beneficial or harmful role in Alzheimer’s.
“We think it depends on the timing,” he said. “At some point after a person develops Alzheimer’s, we think maybe the microglia start cleaning up everything that isn’t perfect.”
This, Freeman said, may actually worsen the disease.
Increasingly, scientists believe the behavior of microglia is influenced by a group of molecules called MHC-1. To better understand what role they play in Alzheimer’s, Freeman’s lab will block the activity of MHC-1 in mice of different ages, some of them displaying symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s.
“We believe that turning off MHC-1 early in life is harmful, but doing so later in life is beneficial,” he said. If his hypothesis proves true, it could someday lead to an Alzheimer’s drug that inhibits MHC-1.
The VA has a particular interest in slowing Alzheimer’s progression, as veterans are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, two major risk factors for the disease. By some estimates, up to 9% of veterans live with Alzheimer’s. While that rate is lower than in the overall population, Freeman said that’s because veterans have lower life expectancy and are less likely to live long enough to develop Alzheimer’s.
“Current treatments for Alzheimer’s haven’t proven very successful,” said OMRF physician-scientist Hal Scofield, M.D., who also serves as associate chief of staff for research at the OKC VA Medical Center. “Dr. Freeman seems to be onto something. If blocking MHC-1 helps slows disease progression, that could be a game-changer.”
Freeman’s grant is No. 1I01BX006628-01A1. An earlier grant from the Presbyterian Health Foundation helped purchase research equipment that made the VA grant possible.
