APP and amyloidosis: Additionally, preventing caspase cleavage of APP by mutating the critical aspartate residue at APP position 664 has been associated with a reduction in amyloid-associated pathology in transgenic mice, including reduced synapse loss or impairment in synaptic plasticity but without any reduction in Aβ levels (Galvan et al. 2006, Saganich et al. 2006), although the results were debated in a later study (Harris et al. 2010).