Alzheimer's breakthrough: 2 hrs of sleep restored without clearing brain plaques

From what I know about terminal lucidity in alzheimer's patients it seems to me that these plaques act like electrical resistors that increase the impedance for neurotransmission. But chemically of course. So if you push more current through the system, such as when you're dying, you can suddenly access memories that were locked off. Is my understanding correct?

	▲	yrjrjjrjjtjjr an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Even prior to this study I've seen people post memes about terminal lucidity. In subsequent discussion people have said it's related to the immune system finally giving up, reducing inflammation, leading to increased perceived health. And then you die from what the immune system was keeping at bay. So this study ties in neatly with that.
	▲	omgwtfbyobbq 36 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Generally yes, but I think it's a lot more nuanced and varied than that. My guess is that there are a large set of genetic, environmental, and idiopathic contributors that converge to a loosely similar phenotype, but couldn't be treated effectively in the same way because they have different sets of causes. I think we'll eventually get to a point where we can treat many kinds of dementia in the same way we treat infections/etc... But it'll take a while.
	▲	lithos an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		One of the fraud filled paths in science. More like rust, where once it starts it allows the process to speed up. In this case collecting poisons.

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rsyring 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

...in mice.

Not knocking the research, cure it already! I just think it should be in the title to avoid false hope.

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s1artibartfast an hour ago | parent | next [-]

No, you cure it already!

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gdulli an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

We're adults like you are and can manage both our emotions and the responsibility of understanding that headlines aren't the totality of information.

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ShinyLeftPad an hour ago | parent [-]

When it is taking about a breakthrough in treatment of a human disease, it's kind of important if it's not actually in humans

Also "headlines aren't the totality of information" doesn't mean there's no clickbait headlines...

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bawolff an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I think the important bit is that, from my understanding, mouse models of alzheimer's dont translate as reliably to humans as it does for other diseases

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Brian_K_White an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It's utterly unimportant. It's all research and all progress and all works towards our benefit eventually. The fact that an important discovery is still in the mouse stage and not yet in the human stage doesn't make it any less important or interesting, unless you are unutterably simple.

Put another way: the "in mice" doesn't matter because they are studying alzheimers, not mice. the mice are just the lab equipment of the moment. I don't care what kind of glassware or computers they use either.

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dolorian an hour ago | parent [-]

It depends on what's being studied. There are mice studies on diet which obviously don't carry over to human beings since we don't have similar digestive systems. It may be true (arguable) that all research data is of some benefit, but don't expect people to be as excited about mouse research as human research.

How do they get the alzheimers mice? Article doesn't say. Usually in studies they take healthy mice and induce the condition artificially. That can be a confounding factor since the condition isn't induced in the specimens we care about (human beings). Is it even the same condition?

	▲	Brian_K_White 31 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It doesn't matter how they give mice alzheimers, or any other condition. That's just part of controlling variables to test for one thing. It also doesn't matter that they were fed processed food rather than having to find things in the wild, unless the effect of diet was the specific thing they were examining.