Women with Down’s syndrome develop the disease faster than men

Alzheimer’s disease, characterized by a progressive and irreversible damage to the brain, is the main cause of death in people with Down’s syndrome, which are genetically predisposed to develop pathology earlier in life. In a new study, published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementiaresearchers from the University of California in Irvine (United States) wanted to examine the association between age and biological sex and neuropathology of Alzheimer’s disease in the event of Down’s syndrome, an anomaly caused by the presence of an additional chromosome 21.

Alzheimer’s: Down’s syndrome could be more carrying proteins related to the disease

To carry out the research, the team examined post-mortem brain samples from the cerebral tissue deposit in the Alzheimer’s disease of the IRVINE and the Neurobobank of NIH. They came from 14 people, aged one to 39, suffering from Down’s syndrome, 18 patients, aged 42 to 61, Down’s syndrome with the neuropathology of Alzheimer’s disease, 15 adults aged 72 to 96 years suffering from Alzheimer’s disease with late appearance and witness patients. The authors measured the levels of two proteins characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease: beta-amyloid protein and phosphorylated protein.

According to the results, a neuropathology of high Alzheimer’s disease has been observed after 35 years in the second group, or patients aged 42 to 61, “With inflection points at around 31 years old (amyloid-β [Aβ]) and around 28 years (phosphorylated tau) in the frontal cortex and approximately 36 years (Aβ and P-TU) in the occipital cortex. “ Scientists have found that the presence of the phosphorylated protein in the occipital cortex, an area generally affected later during the disease, was higher in women with Down’s syndrome in men in Down’s syndrome.

“Modify intervention planning”

“If Down’s syndrome women are more advanced in the progression of the disease at the time of diagnosis, this could change the planning of interventions and the interpretation of the results in clinical trials. (…) Understanding the selective vulnerabilities of the brain and their differences between women and men will help us to better assess the results of the treatments. We learn the importance of the modifiable risk factors, in particular the consideration of the risk of sex,” said Elizabeth Head, who directed the work.

In future research, the authors will study if the differences related to sex extend to other types of pathologies, such as the integrity of blood vessels, the connectivity of the white substance and other factors contributing to dementia, and how these results are correlated to the data of biomarkers collected during life.