Is it Alzheimer's disease that humans suffer from? This is one of the questions that world scientists want to answer. In Scotland, scientists from the University of Glasgow have found signs that dolphins may also be suffering from a disease that until now was only believed to be suffered by humans.
The brain of a dolphin stranded in Scotland has been studied by scientists. In some brains of old dolphins they found amyloid protein plaques, tau protein clumps and gliosis which is a type of brain injury. This discovery is significant because it was also found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.
Scientists now hypothesize that the dolphin stranding incident happened when the pod leader with Alzheimer's got lost while swimming. Errors in navigation cause dolphins to be stranded in groups.
A more detailed study will be carried out to see if dolphins with Alzheimer's-like effects also experience cognitive decline like humans.
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