Good read:
https://www.biospace...s-and-new-hope/
The brain is very energy-dependent. When the mitochondria age and stop using fuel like ATP, they are believed to become vulnerable. Microglial cells are specialized immune cells found in the central nervous system. They remove damaged and debris, like amyloid, to maintain the health of the central nervous system. But they also fight infections and react to neuronal cell death by triggering neuroinflammation. This leads to massive neuronal cell death, essentially via “friendly fire.” Tanzi notes, “A microglial cell is more likely to be neuroinflammatory if it is lacking in energy and, thus, less resilient.”
He cites a study published in the journal Cell that described increasing ATP levels in a microglial cell that carried a mutant version of one of the Alzheimer’s genes known as TREM2. “If you increase ATP levels, it continues doing a better job of clearing beta-amyloid. And it’s less likely to become neuroinflammatory. So when we talk about resilience of cells, it’s often about how much energy the cell has. As we get older, we have less cellular energy which has a lot to do with ATP and mitochondria. NAD levels drop as we get older, so if you supplement it, levels go back up, which starts to restore cellular energy, which has implications for Alzheimer’s disease and neurocellular resilience.” Likewise, a neuron with more energy is less likely to form a tangle in the presence of neuroinflammation, adds Tanzi.