Iron and Alzheimer's: A Promising Path for Medical Interventions

A new imaging probe has revealed an increase in iron redox in brain areas where amyloid plaques occur in the brain in Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting a link between iron and the disease. The imaging technique can simultaneously detect both forms of iron in cells and tissue while also indicating their quantity and spatial distribution. If further research determines that iron and its redox changes indeed cause cell death in Alzheimer’s patients, that information could provide a potential new strategy for drug development.