Researchers at Virginia Tech look deeper into Alzheimer’s disease

BLACKSBURG, Va. (WRIC) -- Researchers at Virginia Tech are looking into how two areas in the brain affects memory, special navigation and potentially Alzheimer's disease.

The two parts of the brain that scientists and researchers are investigating in their Alzheimer's research are the entorhinal cortex region and the mitochondria.

According to a release from Virginia Tech, one of the first parts of the brain that is impacted by Alzheimer's disease is the entorhinal cortex region, due to its significant role in memory, special navigation and the brain's internal mapping system.

In a recent announcement in September, the Commonwealth of Virginia's Alzheimer's and Related Diseases Research Award Fund joined Virginia Tech scientists Sharon Swanger and Shannon Farris to understand why this area is so vulnerable.

Swanger focuses her research on how brain cells communicate across synapses, while Farris looks at memory on the molecular level.

"This new collaborative project brings together my work on synapses and Shannon's on mitochondria in a way that addresses a big gap in the field," Swanger said.

Farris also stated that this kind of state level support is critical.

"It gives researchers in Virginia the chance to ask questions that may eventually make a difference for people living with Alzheimer's. It's meaningful to be part of research that could help people facing that journey," Farris said.

The second area of focus is the mitochondria, which, according to Farris and Swanger, is a vulnerable memory-related circuit that can become overloaded with calcium, which is "a key signaling chemical for multiple neuronal and synaptic processes."

Calcium overloads can contribute to the early breakdown of memory.

"We found that this synapse has unusually strong calcium signals in nearby mitochondria -- so strong we can see them clearly under a light microscope. Those kinds of signals are hard to ignore. It gives us a model where we can really watch what's happening as things start to go wrong," Farris said.

In order to test this, both researchers will study brain tissue from healthy mice and mice with Alzheimer's by comparing how the mitochondria function and how brain cells communicate across synapses in each group.

By doing this, Swanger and Farris hope to find the early signs of stress or failure in the entorhinal cortex-hippocampus circuit.