This article from MedicalXpress.com discusses a recent finding by Chinese and Australian scientists about Alzheimer's disease. They discovered a neuroprotective protein that is deficient in people with Alzheimer's symptoms. The relationship between the deficient protein and Alzheimer's disease may be strong enough to use the concentration of this protein in the brain to diagnose early onset Alzheimer's. By re-introducing the protein into the brains of mouse models of Alzheimer's disease, the behavioral effects of the disease were reversed. The protein may also inhibit amyloid-B aggregation, which is believed to be one of the main causes the neurodegeneration which is a hallmark of the disease.