Alzheimer's Disease Anthropology

Alzheimer’s is a devastating, progressive disease that destroys mental function by causing brain cells to degenerate, and ultimately die. Family history is the single greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s, right beside age. The symptoms of the disease are increased memory loss, psychological, and behavioral issues that subsequently lead to death. But what are the genetics behind Alzheimer’s, and how can we trace the human genome so that we can find the specific place at which Alzheimer’s can be traced? A scientific journal entitled Mitochondrial Genomic Analysis of Late Onset Alzheimer 's: The Cache County Study on Memory in Aging, may be able to answer these questions. The study done in the article focused on the complete mitochondrial genome

It surprised me that over three million cases of the disease are reported in the US each year, which makes examining Alzheimer’s all the more important. I feel that it’s critical to find out where exactly in the genome Alzheimer’s occurs, especially because so many people worldwide are affected. One way that I thought the research in the article could benefit society was for future parents. Being able to know if you are likely to have the disease, or if your children could potentially have the disease could impact a family 's choice as to the future of that child. Knowing that a child may carry the H6A1A or H6A1B low risk haplogroup may impact family planning choices as well. Another way the article’s information could be used is to possibly form a drug to help people prevent the disease, or people with the disease still in a dormant state. Once we know that there is a haplogroup in individuals with Alzheimer’s that can decrease their risk of developing the disease, we may be able to isolate and further study the specific gene to determine how exactly this genetic component reduces the risk of getting Alzheimer’s. This information could possibly be used to create treatments in the future to eliminate, or at least greatly reduce the

Scientific papers, while informative, are written entirely different than other means of communication. Unlike many other papers, there’s a very specific format that scientific papers follow. Many papers immediately start, whereas scientific papers have an abstract at the beginning; a paragraph or two summing up what the paper is about and what the research yielded. Following the abstract comes the full text, where everything is sorted into small subsections to differentiate the information. In the article I studied, the full text is separated into six sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Ethics Statement, Sample Acquisition and Sequencing, Analyses Results, and Discussion. The way the article is worded also differs from other means of writing. The words are very decisive and straightforward; only stating what needs to be stated, and adding data where needed. Compared to most papers I’ve read, sorting through the scientific wording and figuring out the format proved to be much more difficult than