Over the past several years, scientists have attempted to develop animal models that contain these brain changes and exhibit the thinking and behavioral changes observed in humans with Alzheimer's disease. Dale Schenk and colleagues have recently published an intriguing report that demonstrates the potential usefulness of treating transgenic animals who are likely to develop an excess of amyloid plaques with a vaccine that contains the actual amyloid protein. A corollary to this approach is use of a vaccine for polio vaccine.
Children receive a safe form of the polio virus so that their body develops antibodies to the virus.
These antibodies then subsequently protect the individual from future infection with the real polio virus. Schenk et al. have developed a mouse strain that expresses an excess of amyloid plaques. Thus, these mice have an excess of one of the three major components of Alzheimer's disease. When the mice grew older, the vaccinated mice had far fewer amyloid plaques than animals who had not received the amyloid. The authors suggest the potential usefulness of amyloid injections for humans.