New evidence of a “waste canal system” in the human brain has been uncovered by researchers from Saint Michael’s College and the University of Vermont. Part of their research was on neurodegeneration in Central American wandering spiders. This “canal” system internalizes waste from healthy neurons. The team found that it can also undergo catastrophic swelling, which leads to the degeneration of brain tissue, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
They believe their findings may provide a new explanation for the brain pathologies commonly observed in Alzheimer’s disease, including amyloid-beta plaques, tau tangles, and spongiform abnormalities.
Their work was published in The Journal of Comparative Neurology; the lead author is Ruth Fabian-Fine, from the department of biology, Saint Michael’s College. The research was carried out in collaboration with John DeWitt (UVM Robert Larner, MD, College of Medicine, UVM Medical Center), Adam Weaver (Saint Michael’s College), and Saint Michael’s undergraduate research students Abigail Roman and Melanie Winters.
Understanding the causal mechanisms of neurodegeneration is one of the major goals of modern science. One hypothesis relates to impaired waste clearance mechanisms from the brain due to reported waste aggregation in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, including amyloid-β plaques and neurofibrillary tau tangles.
The authors wrote: “Currently, our understanding of the mechanisms by which waste is removed from the brain is only fragmentary.”
Fabian-Fine and her team initially investigated the underlying causes of neurodegeneration in Central American wandering spiders, which suffer from conditions similar to degenerative diseases in humans. Because the spider neurons were larger, the scientists were better able to observe their brain functions. The researchers 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 to explore whether a similar system could be found in both rodent and human brain tissue, so she teamed up with neuropathologist DeWitt at UVM’s Larner College of Medicine. The collaboration 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.
They suggested their 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.
“The Vermont Biomedical Research Network (VBRN) 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 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.”
