
Ask HN: Is this a breaktrough in Alzheimer research and cause? - burnbabyburn
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14727
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gus_massa
From the guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> In Submissions

> _Please don 't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or
> exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an
> article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's
> important._

> _Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or
> linkbait._

The original title has more information: "Dopamine neuronal loss contributes
to memory and reward dysfunction in a model of Alzheimer’s disease"

The problem with the submitted title: "Ask HN: Is this a breaktrough in
Alzheimer research and cause?"(nature.com) is that all discovers are presented
by the researchers/press release/etc. as a breakthrough. There are plenty of
news about increasing the battery life by 73%, the solar cell efficiency by
42% or curing cancer. After a while, the dust settle and sometimes the result
is interesting and is an improvement.

In this case, it's published in "Nature Communications", not in the main
"Nature" journal. I don't know the difference in quality between them, but I
suppose that if this were a groundbreaking breakthrough article the authors
would try to publish it in the main "Nature" journal.

The research was in a mouse model, not human patients, so perhaps it's a good
hint to guide a future treatment in humans, but it's not clear.

Also, they didn't found a "cure" for the mouse model. IIUC they only found
what is the part of the brain affected by the first symptoms. But they have to
cut the mouse to see it, it's not an non invasive detection technique.

Perhaps this is a good starting point for a future better understanding of the
illness and a treatment, or perhaps no.

