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The late US
President Ronald Reagan had it; former Union minister George Fernandes is battling it, and actor Amitabh Bachchan made it a street
word with his role in the 2005 movie B l a c k. But a cure for
Alzheimer’s — a degenerative disorder of the brain — may be around the
corner, going by the results achieved in studies at the National Brain
Research Centre (NBRC).
The disorder marked by memory and judgment loss usually occurs in
people older than 65, and has defied a cure so far. But researchers
working with the extract of a herb used in Ayurveda since ancient times
have reported promising results. Using an extract of the Ashwagandha
root on mice with Alzheimer’s disease, NBRC scientists found it can
reverse memory loss and may prove to be an effective cure for the
disease in humans.
NBRC neuroscientist Vijayalakshmi Ravindranath tested the
semi-purified sample extracted at Delhi University on genetically
modified mice with Alzheimer’s disease. Two sets of test mice — middle
aged (9-10 months) and old (2 years) — were given oral doses of the
extract for 30 days and monitored. Over the month, scientists found a
reduction in amyloid plaques (a symptom of Alzheimer’s) in the mice
brains and improvement in the animals’ cognitive abilities. Their study
was published
recently in the Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences (PNAS),
and the Nature India Journal.
The mice used for the experiment carry the mutation that is
characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease and produce the amyloid in greater
quantities.
“We got the mice from Jackson Labs in US. They were tested on a
radial arm maze, where they are trained to go and pick food from four of
the maze’s eight arms. Since the mice had Alzheimer’s, they were
neither able to learn nor retain the learning. But after 20 days of the
Ashwagandha treatment, we noticed a difference, and after 30 days they
had started behaving normally,” said Ravindranath, former
founder-director of NBRC, and chairperson of Centre of Neurosciences,
Indian Institute of Science.
She explained that the extract didn’t work directly on the brain. It
enhanced a protein in the liver that is thrown out in the blood and acts
like a sponge to pull out the amyloid from the brain. “I am very
interested in Ayurveda. This experiment gives us hope,” Ravindranath
said.
The NBRC’s results have also boosted morale at DU’s Natural Products
Laboratory. “Professor Vijayalakshmi had approached us to evaluate some
plants and their effect on neurological disorders. Most medicines that
are currently being used for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are synthetic
drugs that have some side effects,” said professor Subhash Chand Jain of
Delhi University. The team at DU selected the root of Ashwagandha and
followed up with a series of extractions at the lab.
“We did the extraction using a solvent system. And then it was
further fractionalized to see which fraction was most active. At this
point, Vijayalakshmi was very excited because she saw that some of the
fractions were active. Then we worked on pinning down the fraction that
was most active,” Jain said.
HERBAL THERAPY
Alzheimer’s is a progressive brain disease that slowly destroys
memory and thinking skills, and eventually even the ability to carry out
some simple tasks
Amyloids are protein aggregations that share specific traits
Beta Amyloid is the main component of amyloid plaques, deposits
found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s
Ashwagandha extract given to mice in NBRC lab for 30 days showed
considerable reduction in the amyloid plaques that had formed in their
brains
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