Alzheimer's research on animals a waste of time

[Catherine]

Very old animals may get a form of dementia. Certainly the forms that involve mini strokes could occur in other species.
The brain usually shrinks when there is dementia. I think the "use it or lose it" idea is part of it. People sometimes choose to slip into a brain fog. They quit trying.

I can understand why. When a long term partner dies the remaining spouse might not want to go on. It is easier to slip into dementia than to keep remembering the loss. Something like surgery or even a bad flu seems to trigger dementia symptoms. The person might have already had some dementia and the illness makes it worse and noticeable.

Alzheimer's is different and I understand that we are the only species that gets it. Alzheimer's can onset at 40 years old. Early onset is rare, but it happens. It is a weird set of symptoms. It is more than just forgetting things. There are tangles  of fibers and clumps of a type of plaque in the brain. The neurons are increasingly unable to transmit  messages across the brain.

This article will explain Alzheimer's better than I can incase anyone wants to read about it.

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&...OAg2CyBGJA


We are so used to doing our research on lab animals that it has taken a long time to see that the research was going nowhere.
I hope that now they will open up new avenues of research and leave the animals alone.

This is a case where kindness to animals really will have benefits to us.  I want to see other types of research look over their work and ask if using animals is really helping.