Faced with devastating, long-term projections for the Alzheimer's epidemic soaring as high as 120 million worldwide by 2050, science may have stumbled onto a new weapon to fight this mind-robbing disease from a completely unexpected source: A cancer drug that may be able to improve the way in which the brain records new memories.

Columbia University Medical Center researchers discovered the drug, made from a group of compounds called histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, improved the memory of mice afflicted with Alzheimer's disease.

Brain neurons create new memories by manufacturing new proteins. The initial step in that process is enabling the DNA to be read. That happens when neurons attach groups of reactive chemicals called acetyls to spools where DNA is wound very tightly, thus unwinding DNA to make it more accessible.

Mice whose brains were tainted with a form of Alzheimer's disease, however, were unable to attach more than half as many acetyls and possessed poorer memories, however, compared to healthy mice. The HDAC drug worked on the Alzheimer's mice by increasing the amount of DNA spooling and gene transcription, improving their memory performance to levels measured in normal mice.

Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 131-139, September 2009

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