Singapore, March 17 -- A newly discovered "energy switch" in the immune cells of the brain may lead to the development of drugs for Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia.

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) scientists discovered that after blocking and turning off this "switch", brain immune cells called microglia were able to remove toxic proteins that can build up and lead to Alzheimer's disease.

Microglia tend to be damaged in people with the disease, which makes them less capable of clearing cellular toxic waste. To restore the clean-up function, the scientists "switched off" their inefficient metabolism by preventing a key enzyme from attaching to energy-generating parts of the immune cells....