Dementia breakthrough as drug treatment comes one step closer

Vascular dementia affects around 150,000 people in the UK

A drug treatment for a common type of dementia could be on the horizon after researchers discovered how high blood pressure impacts brain health in the long run.

A new study has uncovered how consistently high blood pressure causes artieries in the brain to become constricted, restricting blood flow, resulting in vascular dementia.

This discovery will hopefully help accelerate the development of the first treatment for the neurological condition that affects around 150,000 people in the UK.

Professor Adam Greenstein, a clinician scientist specialising in high blood pressure at the University of Manchester, and one of the leaders of the research, said: “By uncovering how high blood pressure causes arteries in the brain to remain constricted, our research reveals a new avenue for drug discovery that may help to find the first treatment for vascular dementia.

“Allowing blood to return as normal to damaged areas of the brain will be crucial to stopping this devastating condition in its tracks,” he added.

He explained that drugs which are discovered to improve brain blood supply may also help in treating Alzheimer’s disease, “which causes very similar damage to blood vessels as vascular dementia”.

High blood pressure is one of the main causes of vascular dementia, as the reduced blood supply starves brain cells of nutrients. Over time, these cells become damaged and die.

Symptoms of vascular dementia include lack of concentration and poor memory.

While it is normal for the brain’s arteries to narrow and widen in response to changes in blood pressure, consistently high blood pressure causes arteries to stay narrow and restrict the brain’s blood supply.

However, until now, it was not known how this happened.

The study, from researchers at the Geoffrey Jefferson Brain Research Centre at The University of Manchester, reveals that – in mice – high blood pressure disrupts messaging within artery cells in the brain.

This occurs when two cell structures that normally help to transmit messages that tell arteries to dilate, move further apart.

According to the findings, this stops the messages reaching their target, which causes the arteries to remain permanently constricted, limiting blood flow to the brain.

The experts hope that by identifying drugs that could restore this communication, it may soon be possible to improve blood supply to affected areas of the brain and slow the progression of vascular dementia.

Researchers have identified specific regions of the brain that are damaged by high blood pressure and are involved in a decline in mental processes and dementia (PA) (PA Wire)

While the findings are yet to be confirmed in humans, the processes of blood vessel narrowing and widening are very similar in mice and humans.

The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, medical director at the BHF, said: “Vascular dementia affects around 150,000 people in the UK, and this number is going up.

“There are no treatments to slow or stop the disease, but we know that high blood pressure is an important risk factor. The incurable symptoms are hugely distressing for patients and those close to them.

“Pinpointing how arteries remain permanently narrowed in vascular dementia could lead to the development of new effective treatments, raising hope that there may soon be a way to prevent this illness from destroying more lives,” he added.

Additional reporting by agencies.