Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists noted the diet-induced behavioral differences in the Alzheimer's-prone animals after feeding them blueberry extracts from the equivalent of their early adulthood to early middle age.
Study author James Joseph heads the Neuroscience Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Mass. He and coauthors reported the findings in Nutritional Neuroscience.
The researchers studied mice that carried a genetic mutation for promoting increased amounts of amyloid beta in the brain. This protein molecule, or fragment, builds up as the telltale neuritic plaque, or "hardening of the brain," seen in Alzheimer's disease.
Labels: blueberry extracts, herbal extract
