NCT03472183

Exploration of the Enteric Nervous System in Alzheimer Disease

Exploration of the Enteric Nervous System in Alzheimer Disease : a Monocentric Pilot Study

• Status: Withdrawn
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 0 (actual)
• Sponsor: Nantes University Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 50 Years – 80 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The close homology between the central and enteric nervous system suggests that a disease process affecting the central nervous system could also involve its enteric counterpart. This has already been demonstrated for patients with Parkinson's disease but needs to be proven for Alzheimer's disease. Studies on enteric nervous system during Alzheimer's disease are indeed in low number and don't have led to definite conclusion. The investigators thus propose to realize a complete analysis of the enteric nervous systems in Alzheimer's disease by studying the presence of "tau' protein, of beta-amyloid peptide,... not only by immunohistochemical but also by a biochemical approach. This study will be realized from colonic samples.

Detailed description

The close homology between the central and enteric nervous system suggests that a disease process affecting the central nervous system could also involve its enteric counterpart. The investigators have recently shown in that the enteric neurons can be readily analyzed using routine colonic biopsies. The investigators propose that the enteric nervous system could represent a unique window to assess the neuropathology in living patients with a neurodegenerative disorder. The investigators have already used this approach to show that Parkinson's disease pathology was recapitulated in a single colonic biopsy. By contrast to Parkinson's disease, the detection of Alzheimer's disease pathology in the enteric neurons has so far failed. This may be due to the low number of human tissue samples in addition to the low sensitivity of the immunohistochemical methods that were used. The aim of the current research project will be therefore to reevaluate Alzheimer's disease pathology in a large number of human colonic samples using both a morphological and biochemical approach. The Hypothesis is that the enteric nervous system could represent a unique window to assess the neuropathology in living patients with Alzheimer's disease. This might open the way to the development of novel Alzheimer's disease biomarkers that will directly assess the neuropathological process.

Conditions

• Alzheimer Disease

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	biopsies of colon	Removal of additional biopsies of colon during the course of a colonoscopy planned for usual medical follow-up of patient

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-04-26
• Primary completion: 2019-09-18
• Completion: 2019-09-18
• First posted: 2018-03-21
• Last updated: 2020-04-01