Drug reverses brain deficit of Alzheimer's in animal model

Article from ScienceDaily claims to have found a drug which reverses brain deficit of Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer’s, a type of dementia, is known for causing grave problems in terms of memory, thinking, and especially behavior. Symptoms tend to develop slowly, getting worse over time. Final result: Interferes with daily tasks and individuality. The article states that a couple of researchers at Yale School of Medicine have discovered a new drug compound which is said to, as the title suggests, reverse the brain deficits of Alzheimer’s disease. This was done on an animal model, more specifically, on mice. The name of this compound is TC-2153, which, according to the article, inhibits the effects of a protein named STtriatal-Enriched tyrosine Phosphatase (STEP for short), which is commonly known to regulate brain functions such as memory and learning.  The decrease of STEP levels in mice reversed the effects of the Alzheimer’s disease. Now, it’s great that these scientists claim to have found this drug, which could potentially be used to cure Alzheimer’s disease. However, it would be extremely difficult for this to be proven to me, as a reader. These are just simple words on a computer, which although seem to weight quite a lot, there are no images, diagrams, or videos to demonstrate the process. Greek philosopher Plato once said that knowledge was “justifiable true belief”. Now there is no way, that readers of this article can know for an absolute fact that this drug was actually successful. Now of course, why would an article be put on Science Daily if its content was not entirely proven? The answer is simple; it is, of course, most likely that this drug does exist and it did in fact reverse the brain deficits caused by Alzheimer’s. Nevertheless, there is still this recurring doubt that prevents us readers to trust completely the subject of this article.  There are techniques, however, to achieve this absolute trust. As learned in the Theory of Knowledge course, they are known as the three truth checks: coherence, correspondence, and pragmatism. Pragmatism focuses on whether it is practical or not. Well, as stated in the article, it successfully worked on mice, although, whether it works on humans or not is still undiscovered. The drug itself seems legitimate and after researching the properties of TC-2153, it seems like they could in fact relate to solving the many problems caused by Alzheimer’s. What STEP does, is that it keeps the synapses in the brain from strengthening, which is absolutely required for people to convert short-term memories into long-term memories. TC-2153’s role is that when it comes in, it starts to block this disruption, preventing neuropsychiatric as well as neurodegenerative disorders. After having used these tools to check the truth, I strongly believe this article is reliable in terms of its contents. Through the three truth checks, I was able to gather information, which, in a way, proved the reliability of this article and what it is claiming.

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