Colorful 'Alzheimer's Map' Helps Scientists Track How the Disease Destroys Aging Brains

Scientists have developed a new "atlas" of the hippocampus, the brain region impaired by Alzheimer's disease, reports the Daily Mail . It is their hope that this map can be used by doctors to deliver genetically-targeted drugs to specific neurons to retard the effects of the disease. "With a better map, we can see each region and how it functions," says the University of Southern California's Michael Bienkowski. "A better map is a resource scientists can use to better understand the hippocampus and how its degeneration leads to diseases." The researchers used a mouse brain, employing fluorescent tracers and three-dimensional animation to reveal cells and nerve connections to other brain regions. "We see it doing different things, and this gives us a new way to understand how the whole thing works together. This should have a very profound and broad impact," Bienkowski notes.