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Scientists find links between Alzheimer's, herpes, and head trauma
Research published Tuesday is the first to connect the dots between a common herpes virus, head injury, and Alzheimer's.
“HSV-1 is highly prevalent, usually in latent (dormant) form, in elderly human brains, and in people carrying a specific genetic factor, APOE4, it confers a strong risk of Alzheimer’s,” Ruth Itzhaki, a visiting professorial fellow at the University of Oxford and co-author on the paper, told STAT in an email. That is starting to change, with the National Institute on Aging and the Infectious Diseases Society of America inviting scientists to apply for funding to study the role of pathogens in Alzheimer’s in recent years. For both Lim and Cairns, who have looked up to Itzhaki and her perseverance in the face of decades of hostility from the Alzheimer’s research establishment, it’s gratifying to see the insights generated by the mini-brain models starting to change perceptions about the possibility that common viruses like HSV-1 could cause neurodegenerative disease.
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