A licensed social worker and psychologist with a career spanning more than two decades, Dr. Miriam Galindo manages her Irvine-based private practice Families in Transition, which provides child custody evaluations and family therapy. Additionally, Dr. Miriam Galindo is a volunteer with Alzheimer's Orange County, a nonprofit that supports individuals with types of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers have found that people with Alzheimer's disease (the most common cause of dementia) develop a special group of proteins called amyloid plaques in their brains. Amyloid plaques are not exclusively found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. Other degenerative brain diseases and even aging can contribute to the accretion of amyloid plaques in the brain. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a study on post-autopsy brain tissues of 10 deceased human subjects revealed that the nature of Alzheimer's disease determines amyloid plaque structure.
The study found that subjects who had familial Alzheimer's disease (an inherited form of the disease) developed a different type of amyloid plaque compared to those who had sporadic Alzheimer's. Sporadic Alzheimer's is the type that is not inherited and typically presents at a later stage of life. Subjects who died with other degenerative brain diseases were also included in the study - the amyloid plaques extracted from the brain tissues of these subjects are of the same type as those from subjects with inherited Alzheimer's.
According to the NIH, the findings of this study may pave the way for further research that will enable scientists to learn more about the molecular properties of amyloid plaques. This could facilitate the development of targeted therapies for various types of Alzheimer's disease.
