Studies on fruit flies' brain may help unlock the mysteries behind Alzheimer's disease and pave the way for new treatments for the neurodegenarative disorder, scientists say.
A new Dementia Research Institute set up at Cardiff University in the UK includes a fly laboratory. The fruit fly has many genes which are similar to those in Alzheimer's disease in humans, researchers said.
Dr and one of the researchers, said the flies can help us understand brain function.
"Flies allow us to do imaging techniques which we aren't able to do in other model systems," Owen Peters, a lecturer at Cardiff, told BBC.
"If we find a gene in the human genetic studies that looks like it's linked to Alzheimer's disease - and flies have it - it allows us to have a very rapid, inexpensive system, which we can test to see how these affect brain function," Peters said.
Fruit flies are just a small part of the genetic research which is looking to understand better how a family of diseases, which also includes Parkinson's and Huntingdon's, behave.
Genetic studies have suggested that the body's own defence system could contribute to Alzheimer's disease.
Paul Morgan, a professor of immunology at Cardiff, will be trying to try to develop a better understanding about those mechanisms
"We know now what we thought of as brain-rot, a slow decay of the brain in people with dementia - isn't that at all. Instead it's an inflammatory disease where the inflammation is driving the destruction of brain cells," said Morgan.
"And knowing that give us new approaches to therapy because were good at treating inflammation in other diseases like arthritis and we can now start thinking of applying those approaches to brain diseases like Alzheimer's," he said.
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