The effect of live-attenuated herpes zoster vaccination on blood-based biomarkers of neurodegeneration

More and more studies suggest that infections may be an important cause of dementia and possibly brain aging more generally. The most convincing evidence exists for herpesviruses, which “hibernate” in the nervous system. Recently,  an innovative causal approach in data from the United Kingdom has been used to suggest that shingles (herpes zoster) vaccination prevents or delays dementia. To further investigate this, a clinical trial would be needed, but this is costly and time-consuming. Instead, this research team proposes to measure markers of dementia in blood collections taken as part of a past clinical trial of shingles vaccination. These markers have shown promise in identifying the progression of dementia. The team's aim, therefore, is to determine the effect of shingles vaccination on blood-based markers of dementia. The blood collections that are available were taken just before and three years after people enrolled in the trial. The lab has 1,395 blood collections for each of these two time points from the same set of individuals. Finding that shingles vaccination has a benefit for dementia would be an important finding because it could help us understand the causes of dementia and identify effective tools to prevent, delay or treat dementia, and potentially brain aging more generally.