Sarah Joseph

William A. Shine Great Neck South High School
United States

Abstract Title: The Correlation of Type 2 Diabetes in Increasing the Risk of Alzheimer's and utilizing Ashwagandha as a potential therapeutic via the GSK3B signaling pathway

Biography: Sarah Joseph is a high school junior, interested in the utilization of ayurvedic medicines and its potential implications for further medicinal use. She is also interested in neurological disorders as well. Sarah has been involved with science research for the duration of her high school career and has conducted university-level research as well. Her research has been awarded in competitions and she is currently in the process of editing a paper for publication.

Research Interest: Diabetic patients are four times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than non-diabetics. Studies find this trend to be correlated with GSK3B, a kinase in the insulin signaling pathway which at high concentrations due to insulin signaling dysfunction leads to neurotoxic aggregates linked to the loss of neurons in areas related to memory and learning leading to Alzheimer’s onset. To address this correlation, we utilized Ashwagandha as a treatment because of its dual neuroprotective and anti-diabetic effects. First, we induced diabetes in our Drosophila model organism and confirmed induction by observing a significant decline in peripheral diabetic symptoms in the diabetic control flies through a noxious heat avoidance assay. Ashwagandha showed remediation of these symptoms by 69.9% (10⁻¹ M) and 111% (10⁻² M), demonstrating its anti-diabetic effects. Next, to monitor the progression of Diabetes to Alzheimer’s, we assessed memory function and the rough eye phenotype. In both assays we saw progression of diabetes to Alzheimer’s through similar scores the groups showed. However, Ashwagandha showed differing results in remediating Alzheimer’s symptoms. Ashwagandha supplementation did not show improvements in memory function in diabetic flies. However, ashwagandha remediated the rough eye phenotype by 39% (10⁻¹ M) and 31% (10⁻² M). Finally, survival of these flies showed initial stabilization followed by an abrupt decline at both concentrations, lowering the lifespan to lower than that of the control groups. This shows new insight on potential long-term consequences of Ashwagandha usage on lifespan and can hint at limitations to this therapeutic.