Overview

• The Communications Biology paper analyzed brains from 20 bottlenose dolphins stranded in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon between 2010 and 2019.
• Dolphins found during bloom seasons carried up to roughly 2,900 times more of the cyanobacterial neurotoxin 2,4-DAB than those stranded outside bloom periods.
• Postmortem exams documented β-amyloid plaques, hyperphosphorylated tau and TDP-43 inclusions consistent with Alzheimer’s-like neuropathology.
• Transcriptomic profiling identified 536 altered genes, with patterns tied to Alzheimer’s pathways and correlations with hearing-related transcripts.
• Authors describe dolphins as environmental sentinels and caution that the links between toxin exposure, neurodegeneration and strandings are correlative and require further study.