Researchers create ‘mini brains’ to model Lewy body dementia and pinpoint treatments
To better understand how Lewy body dementia (LBD) develops, Mayo Clinic scientists created mini brain models in a dish that closely match key features seen in the brains of patients with Lewy body dementia.
The team also identified four potential drug compounds that may offer promising approaches to treating the disease. Their findings are published in Science Advances.
To better understand the pathology of the disease, a Mayo Clinic research team led by neuroscientist and senior author Na Zhao, M.D., Ph.D., developed preclinical mini-brain models using stem cells from LBD patients who had extra copies of the SNCA gene, which may have caused their condition. The patients donated their skin cells upon diagnosis while they were still alive. Scientists then converted the skin cells to stem cells and used them for research.
Using advanced genomic techniques such as single-cell RNA sequencing, which examines genetic material in individual cells, the researchers showed that their mini-brain models mirrored changes seen in the human brains of LBD patients who had donated their brains to the Mayo Clinic Brain Bank, making the models valuable tools for studying how the disease develops.
The researchers used their novel model system to screen nearly 1,300 Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs, identifying four candidates that may help prevent the buildup of alpha-synuclein in neurons.
