A new study led by the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology shows how feeding mice a drug called GSM-15606 provided protection against air pollution-related increases in proteins linked to Alzheimer's disease. Senior author Caleb Finch, USC University Professor and holder of the ARCO/William F. Kieschnick Chair in the Neurobiology of Aging at the USC Leonard Davis School, has studied air pollution's effects on the brain for several years, especially the consequences of exposure to fine particulates found in pollution from automobiles, factories and more.
Many studies have shown that air quality has a sizeable impact on risk of Alzheimer and accelerates cognitive decline, he said. Air pollution is correlated with systemic inflammation and promotes the formation of amyloid plaques, the clumps of aggregated peptide Aβ42 that form between the brain's nerve cells in Alzheimer's. The latest work from Finch's lab, published August 12 in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association , highlights the potential protection offered by a type of drug called a gamma-secretase modulator.
The team tested a specific drug called GSM-15606, which was developed by study co-authors Rudolph E. Tanzi of Harvard and Kevin D. Rynearson of the University of California, San Diego.
GSM-15606 was fed to mice over 8 weeks; during that time, the animals were regularly exposed to air pollution in the form of either ambient nanoparticulate matter (nPM) or diesel exhaust particles (DE.