Everyone knows that Alzheimer's disease is a horrific disease. It leads to lost memories and a severe decline in cognitive functioning. This happens on a cellular level; neuron by neuron, brain cells are poisoned and then killed off by the spreading disease. Now, there is a new mapping of the disease's spread that has been determined by researchers. By looking at just how neurons are affected by the disease, we can gain new understandings about how the disease will spread in the affected brains and as a result, we can better understand in the future how to slow or even stop the disease.

The spread of Alzheimer's always tends to follow the same pattern within diseased brains. Why or what this pattern was was not entirely known until just recently. Now, researchers have been able to map just how the disease progresses throughout the brain on a cellular level and have made a big step in understanding the disease as a result. The disease begins in the brain's entorhinal cortex, which is a part of the cerebral cortex, and then spreads to the hippocampus; both of these parts of the brain are essential when it comes to memory. As the disease progresses, pathological changes take place on a larger level, and the patient being affected becomes sicker and sicker.

Why the disease follows this pattern is not yet fully known. Still, the way that sick cells infect others was a breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimer's disease. Researchers stained neurons with a dye and were able to track the disease in this manner. When a cell became affected, that cell became a red color and thus the disease was tracked with this method. It was found that the healthy cells, when they became infected and turned red, started breaking down. A sick cell begins to have the organelles stored within the neuron's nucleus begin to leak after only a couple days after being in contact with a sick cell.

Before this, it was not entirely known if Alzheimer's cells €infected€ others or whether the disease just spread through the protein deposits that AD is now infamous for. Now that researchers know that one sick cell can infect another healthy cell, the search for a preventative measure can begin. Alzheimer's happens when neurons become burdened with a toxic protein plaque, and this eventually causes cellular death. By being able to prevent this breakdown, a lot of brain functioning could be preserved, thus helping improve the quality of life of Alzheimer's patients in dramatic fashion. This is still a long way off, but the new study indicates that this might be possible and with continuing advances in the field every day, a way to slow down the disease is hopefully coming soon.