Determining the mechanism behind yoga’s effects on preventing the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease

Adithy Hassan; Meghan Robinson; Stephanie M. Willerth

doi:10.4103/1673-5374.265553

摘要：Background on the relationship between meditation/yoga prac-tice and its effect on Alzheimer’s disease (AD): Dementia refers to a variety of conditions that affect the normal function of the brain, leading to symptoms like memory loss, issues with problem solving, diffculty in processing thoughts and disordered language (McKhann et al., 2011). AD serves as one of the major causes of dementia as it is responsible for ~80% of its cases according to the Alzheimer’s Association. AD affects the ability of neurons, the ma-jor information transmitting cells of both the peripheral and central nervous system, to send and receive signals through the body, lead-ing to the aforementioned symptoms associated with dementia. The biological hallmarks of AD include the presence of amyloid beta (Aβ) plaques as well as neurofibrillary tangles containing a protein called tau (Lane et al., 2018). These proteins disrupt the normal function of neurons through a variety of mechanisms. In particular, AD first results in a loss of a specific neuronal subtype – the cholin-ergic neurons found in the basal forebrain - by reducing the expres-sion levels of choline acetyltransferase. This enzyme breaks down acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter expressed in the neuromuscular junction, resulting in the loss of normal brain function. This loss of acetylcholine in AD patients was first noted in the late 1970s, and is now known to correlate with reduced cortical choline acetyltrans-ferase, the enzyme responsible for synthesizing acetycholine from choline, which in turn correlates with neuritic plaque numbers and reduced Mini-Mental State Exam scores (Gauthier, 2002). Current-ly available pharmacological treatments for AD focus on inhibiting the loss of choline acetyltransferase, but do not represent a long-term cure.