{"id":68617,"date":"2025-10-09T03:43:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T03:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/68617\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T03:43:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T03:43:07","slug":"brains-of-stranded-dolphins-showed-signs-of-alzheimers-disease-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/68617\/","title":{"rendered":"Brains of Stranded Dolphins Showed Signs of Alzheimer’s Disease : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Might brain damage linked to Alzheimer’s<\/a> be one of the reasons dolphins lose their way and end up stranded? It’s a possibility explored in a new study of 20 common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus<\/a>) stranded in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida, between 2010 and 2019.<\/p>\n

What’s more, the researchers behind the study have linked the signs of dolphin neurodegeneration to climate change<\/a> \u2013 via toxic blooms of algae<\/a> and bacteria that are becoming more frequent and widespread in warmer waters.<\/p>\n

An analysis of the brains of the stranded dolphins revealed changes to gene expression that are associated with Alzheimer’s in humans, as well as damage typical<\/a> of the disease, like clumped proteins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Related: Fat Buildup in Brain Cells Could Provide New Target For Alzheimer’s Treatment<\/a><\/p>\n

There was a significant difference in the dolphins stranded during algal bloom seasons though: Their brains showed levels of the neurotoxin 2,4-diaminobutyric acid (2,4-DAB) that were a whopping 2,900 times more concentrated than in other dolphins that beached themselves when no algal blooms were around.<\/p>\n

It’s evidence of the harmful effects of blooms filled with cyanobacteria<\/a>, and it could explain some of the loss of navigational skills<\/a> and memory that would lead these dolphins to become stranded.<\/p>\n

\"AlgalThe researchers linked algal blooms with dolphin brain damage. (Durden et al., Comms. Biol., 2025)<\/p>\n

“Since dolphins are considered environmental sentinels for toxic exposures in marine environments, there are concerns about human health issues associated with cyanobacterial blooms,” says<\/a> toxicologist David Davis, from the University of Miami.<\/p>\n

For context, it’s important to note that dolphins normally develop brain problems that look a lot like Alzheimer’s<\/a> as they get older. We also know that toxins given off by cyanobacteria can harm neurons<\/a> in animals and people, though links to human neurodegenerative diseases are still under investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The suggestion the team is making now is that these problems might be accelerated and made worse in dolphins by harmful algal blooms<\/a>. The study adds details on the neurotoxins doing the damage, the key consequences in the dolphin brains, and the seasonal variations.<\/p>\n

“The co-occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease neuropathological changes and the natural accumulation of algal toxins observed in dolphins allows a unique opportunity to study the impact of these two converging events on the brain,” write<\/a> the researchers in their published paper.<\/p>\n

The risks aren’t just limited to dolphins, either: these blooms are causing harm<\/a> to plenty of other kinds of marine life, which then has knock-on effects going up the food chain, leading eventually to humans.<\/p>\n

Past research has already linked<\/a> algal blooms to toxins that can lead to memory loss, which is of course a key characteristic of Alzheimer’s. If these chemicals get into our food in large enough amounts, that could be a serious problem.<\/p>\n

This study looks at dolphins and not humans, but some of the fundamental, Alzheimer’s-like shifts in the brain<\/a> are the same, the researchers note. There’s no direct link yet, but the signs are there, and that’s at least worthy of further investigation.<\/p>\n

Some of the same researchers have previously looked at<\/a> cyanobacteria and the neurotoxins they produce in cycad trees, finding that these toxins can persist in the environment and can accumulate up the food chain. That’s a potential pathway where exposure to these toxins might lead to different types of neurodegeneration in human beings, including dementia.<\/p>\n

“Although there are likely many paths to Alzheimer’s disease, cyanobacterial exposures increasingly appear to be a risk factor,” says<\/a> Davis.<\/p>\n

The research has been published in Communication Biology<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Might brain damage linked to Alzheimer’s be one of the reasons dolphins lose their way and end up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60,2209],"class_list":["post-68617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-msft-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}