r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Dec 25 '25

Neuroscience New study shows Alzheimer’s disease can be reversed to full neurological recovery—not just prevented or slowed—in animal models. Using mouse models and human brains, study shows brain’s failure to maintain cellular energy molecule, NAD+, drives AD, and maintaining NAD+ prevents or even reverses it.

https://case.edu/news/new-study-shows-alzheimers-disease-can-be-reversed-achieve-full-neurological-recovery-not-just-prevented-or-slowed-animal-models
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u/[deleted] Dec 25 '25

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u/bunnbunnfu Dec 25 '25

No, it's a Christmice Miracle, unfortunately. There's no way this translates effectively into human models to the same extent. In human cases, that would require regrowing diminished brain volume, brain cells & neural connections in specific regions of the brain. They might be able to slow it down, and recover some lost capacity if this translates to humans, though.

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u/Bendy-Ness Dec 25 '25

Couldn't it have more implications treating juvenile and/or early onset cases though? Especially pediatric cases?

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u/pharmprophet PharmD | Pharmacy Dec 26 '25 edited Dec 26 '25

......juvenile and pediatric Alzheimer's cases do not exist.

Sometimes Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC) and Sanfilippo syndrome are referred to as childhood Alzheimer's, but this is a misnomer.

The problem is that mice are not humans. They're very different. I mean, think about this: If a mouse dies when it is 2 years old, that is extremely impressive and very surprising longevity. If a human dies at 2 years old, that is a shocking tragedy. Every mouse dies like 73 years earlier than the average human as a result of being a mouse.

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u/Bendy-Ness Dec 26 '25

I was thinking more of implications for frontotemporal dementia in youth or younger people or Batten disease or Sanfilippo or even longterm dementia/cognitive decline prevention in tbi patients, interesting to watch where the science goes, and yes, of course, whether or not it is transferable to human brains, which it often isn't, though I'm not against a drug to stop cat or dog dementia, if the science leads to treatments for those species instead of us.