New research implicates myelin in early evolution of Huntington's disease

Last month, Dr. George Bartzokis, director of the UCLA Memory Disorders and Alzheimer’s Disease Clinic, suggested in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia that the breakdown of a type of myelin that develops late in life promotes the buildup of toxic amyloid plaques long associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Myelin is the “insulation” that wraps around nerve axons in the brain.