The Minister of Health and Care Services Bent Høie in conversation with the researchers at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience. Photo credits: Frode Nikolaisen / St. Olavs Hospital
The Minister of Health and Care Services Bent Høie visited the Kavli Institute today. On the agenda was Alzheimer’s disease.
Bent Høie wanted to know if the researchers at the Kavli Institute had new ideas about what causes brain cells to die In Alzheimer’s disease.
– We know a lot about what Alzheimer’s does in animal models, May-Britt Moser explained.
– And we know that the brain structures that are affected early on in these disease models are very similar to those in humans. But we still need to relate these findings to the disease in humans. This is why we are planning to put together a new Center for connecting and translating knowledge between basic research on animal models and clinical research on humans.
– International Alzheimer’s research has been following the wrong track for too long. It has been based on assumptions that have turned out to be misleading. Brain plaques proved to be a red herring. We now have to go back to the drawing board and bring forward new ideas and new concepts, said Menno Witter.
– What we do know about the disease today, is that the very first areas of the brain that are affected include the structures where navigation and memory take place. We at the Kavli Institute have the expertise, the tools, and the technology that is required to understand the functions of these areas, as well as what might go wrong there at the early stages of the disease. We are among the wealthiest countries in the world, Edvard Moser said.
– I feel we are morally obliged to help solve one of the greatest challenges for global health of our time.
From left: Professor Menno Witter, State Secretary Anne Grethe Erlandsen, Minister of Health and Care Services Bent Høie, Professor Edvard Moser, and Professor May-Britt Moser. Photo credits: Frode Nikolaisen / St. Olavs Hospital