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Amyloid by default

Nature Neuroscience volume 14, pages 669–670 (2011)Cite this article

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The sustained metabolic activation of the brain's default-mode network is thought to render the system vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease. Recent results with transgenic mice support this view by linking neuronal activity to interstitial fluid amyloid-β levels and the development of amyloid-β plaques.

As most long-distance runners will tell you, sustained activity comes at a price. The health benefits of regular exercise, with time and age, eventually must compete with side effects such as tendonitis and aching joints. Is the same true in the nervous system? Specifically, do areas of the brain that are chronically active, areas that foster many of our intellectual and creative gifts, cultivate the seeds of one of our greatest late-life tragedies, Alzheimer's disease? In this issue of Nature Neuroscience, Bero and colleagues1 present data from transgenic mouse models indicating that this may be so.

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Figure 1: Aβ and senile plaque formation in the default mode network.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lary C. Walker is at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Department of Neurology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.,

    Lary C Walker

  2. Mathias Jucker is in the Department of Cellular Neurology, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, and DZNE–German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Tübingen, Germany.,

    Mathias Jucker

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  1. Lary C Walker
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Correspondence to Lary C Walker or Mathias Jucker.

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Walker, L., Jucker, M. Amyloid by default. Nat Neurosci 14, 669–670 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2853

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