sgsundy, you can read about neurofilaments in here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofilament

Together with microtubules and microfilaments, the neurofilaments form the neuronal cytoskeleton and it is quite easy to understand that when neurons degenerate as in AD, PD, HD, ALS this kind of particles, debris are found in the blood. It could be a tool to find out if degeneration slows down or if it accelerates etc. So to measure this could be a tool when evaluating if PBT434 works on neuron-level but of course, it needs to work on the symptom level aswell.

Dr. PA Adlard from Florey Institute has just published a paper about neurofilaments (below). He has been an author in many previous papers of Prana. So I would be sure that there is a lot of understanding of neurofilaments in ATH. Adlard tells in this paper about how iron content increases if there is no neurofilament L gene.

PLoS One. 2019 Oct 23;14(10):e0224169. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0224169. eCollection 2019.

Iron is increased in the brains of ageing mice lacking the neurofilament light gene.

Vickers JC¹, King AE¹, McCormack GH¹, Bindoff AD¹, Adlard PA².

Author information

1

Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia.

2

The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.

Abstract

There has been strong interest in the role of metals in neurodegeneration, and how ageing may predispose the brain to related diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. Recent work has also highlighted a potential interaction between different metal species and various components of the cytoskeletal network in the brain, which themselves have a reported role in age-related degenerative disease and other neurological disorders. Neurofilaments are one such class of intermediate filament protein that have a demonstrated capacity to bind and utilise cation species. In this study, we investigated the consequences of altering the neurofilamentous network on metal ion homeostasis by examining neurofilament light (NFL) gene knockout mice, relative to wildtype control animals, at adulthood (5 months of age) and advanced age (22 months). Inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy demonstrated that the concentrations of iron (Fe), copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) varied across brain regions and peripheral nerve samples. Zn and Fe showed statistically significant interactions between genotype and age, as well as between genotype and region, and Cu demonstrated a genotype and region interaction. The most substantial difference between genotypes was found in Fe in the older animals, where, across many regions examined, there was elevated Fe in the NFL knockout mice. This data indicates a potential relationship between the neurofilamentous cytoskeleton and the processing and/or storage of Fe through ageing.