The Role of Astrocytes in Alzheimer’s Disease Progression

Abstract

Astrocytes are a particular type of glial cells observed throughout the gray matter in the brain. In a healthy brain, they help to defend evolutionarily conserved astrogliosis programs and maintain neuronal metabolism. On the other hand, in the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affected brain, they release neurotoxins because of the adopting behaviours of different functions depending on the disease progression. Along with astrocytes, amyloid-beta (A$\beta$) and tau proteins ($\tau$P) play a prominent role in AD. In this paper, we have developed a model and have studied the dual action of astrocytes with A$\beta$, $\tau$P, and their toxic forms in the brain connectome. Initial conditions-dependent solutions of the model demonstrate that the treatment depends on AD’s status at the first diagnosis time. With an increase in the clearance rate of toxic A$\beta$ by the astrocytes, the model predicts a cure possibility from AD. Furthermore, the network model with non-uniform parameter values in different regions, developed here, provides a better insight into the distributions of the concentrations in the brain connectome.