New Gene linked to Down Syndrome

[Jessterw]

http://mednews.stanford.edu/releases/2006/june/downsyndrome.html

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital have identified one possible cause of mental retardation in Down syndrome. The culprit is a gene that, when overexpressed, causes neurons responsible for attention and memory to shrivel and stop functioning normally. The finding offers the first glimmer of hope that doctors could one day interfere with or even reverse the cognitive decline that frequently affects those with Down syndrome in middle age.

What's doubly exciting about this is that, if you read into the article, this gene may very well reveal ways to combat Alzheimer’s disease as well.