New Clues to Alzheimer’s - NYTimes.com

New Clues to Alzheimer’s - NYTimes.com: One promising study, led by researchers at Harvard Medical School, was published online Wednesday in the journal Nature. It identified a protein that typically increases in old age and appears to protect brain cells from dying. In patients who develop Alzheimer’s, the protein, called REST, is in short supply and out of position. In patients who have yet to suffer cognitive losses, the protective protein is still present and in the right spot (the nucleus of a neuron) to be effective even if those patients have the brain tangles and plaques long associated with Alzheimer’s.