A change in a protein in the brain signals possible neurocognitive disorders, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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You probably know how complex your brain function is, relying on a delicately balanced system full of proteins that act as signals and specialized nerve and structural cells. Turns out there is an interplay of some neurons being shut down or inhibited while others are turned on or excited. Paul Worley, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins, says there’s a protein called NPTX2 at the crux of it all.

Worley: It's one of the earliest things that change. It controls the balance between excitation and inhibition in the brain when it's lost, its function lost, the balance shifts towards excitation, which we know occurs in human studies. What we are discovering is that that shift also drives changes in processes, things that we have previously known to be directly causally linked with Alzheimer's.            :30

Worley says right now NPTX2 can only be measured in cerebrospinal fluid. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.