León, Gto., January 5, 2018.- Alzheimer is a brain disease that affects the memory, according the National Institute of Geriatrics, about 800 thousand people have this disease, which is the most common form of dementia in Mexico.

Dr. Gustavo Basurto Islas, Professor-Researcher of the Division of Sciences and Engineering of the University of Guanajuato has, as one his main research projects, to study pathological mechanisms associated to brain ischemia and the establishing of the Alzheimer disease, as well as to generate their proposal for their treatment and prevention.

The researcher has dedicated part of his studies to generate a therapeutic strategy for Alzheimer, at first, he explained that this disease is degenerative since the neurons begin to gradually die by different mechanisms, one of them is the aggregation of proteins.

"We have proteins in the brain that do their normal functions, however, some of these are altered because Alzheimer". The main proteins that are affected by such disease are: the beta-amyloid and the tau.

Dr. Basurto Islas continued, "the tau is a protein associated to neuronal microtubes, while the beta-amyloid is in the plasma membrane. These proteins begin to self-assemble, they add to each other and turns out that the abnormal aggregation causes the neuronal death. The fact neurons die, makes them loose connection between them, that is why the patients forget things."

For that reason, the researcher of the University of Guanajuato is developing a mechanism to stop the aggregation processes of such proteins, specially the beta-amyloid.

He explained that one of the forms to stop aggregation is to use carbon nanoparticles called fullerenes, which, are generated by a chemical synthesis, "we use in vitro models that help us make a simile of what occurs in the brain of a patient with the disease, reproducing the same mechanism of aggregation of the beta-amyloid. Then, we make interaction models with the fullerenes and block the formation mechanism of the aggregates with the finality to avoid neuronal death."

After working with in vitro models, he prepares for the next step with mutant mice that have protein aggregate structures in their brain, "we are going to inject the molecules or the fullerenes in the mice's brains with the purpose to stop neuronal death and stop the degenerative process", he added.

To finalize, he made a few recommendations to stimulate our brain and memory, "a good nourishment is important, avoid the use of drugs, do physical and mental exercise by learning something new. Change our routines, play board games, etc., we can stimulate our mind and have healthy habits."

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