On Apr. 30, doctors announced the discovery of a new disease that could be mistaken for Alzheimer’s disease. This new disease has been coined LATE, an acronym for limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy. LATE is a type of dementia that often mirrors the effects of Alzheimer’s. However, unlike Alzheimer’s, it develops more slowly and affects a different component of the brain. LATE and Alzheimer’s are often found together in a diagnosed patient, making it harder for doctors to detect LATE. For years, many doctors and scientists speculated about the presence of LATE, as some patients did not exactly fit the common mold or behavior of Alzheimer’s.

LATE affects the TDP-43 protein that is found in the brain. According to Sandra Weintraub, a professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University, “TDP-43 likes certain parts of the brain that the Alzheimer’s pathology is less enamored of.”

Over a decade ago, the TDP protein was linked to the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, otherwise known as ASL, and many other types of dementia. With LATE being this prevalent in many diseases, it is odd that not many knew about its existence prior to its discovery.

According to reports and autopsy studies, 20 to 50% of people aged 80 years and over will likely be diagnosed with LATE. Moreover, the percentage increases as one gets older. For doctors and scientists, a common goal is to find a better way to detect, research, and cure LATE.

Doctors and scientists have known for years that there are different types of dementia. However, the challenge comes from identifying which type of dementia is present in a patient. Doctors call this a “heterogeneity of dementia”. The fact that LATE nearly mimics Alzheimer’s makes the challenge even more difficult to solve for doctors and scientists alike. Moreover, this complicates the research for the root cause of all types of dementia.

The discovery of LATE will heavily affect research being done on Alzheimer’s as the two diseases are fairly similar. For example, to combat Alzheimer’s, doctors and scientists have been administering high-profile drug trials on patients with Alzheimer’s. However, some of these trials failed because some patients had LATE, not Alzheimer’s. As of now, more research is being done on LATE and how it could affect patients and the future of research on it.

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