Alzheimer's disease

Question 1

What is AD?

Answer 1

Serious loss of cognitive ability due to amyloid beta plaque formation

Question 2

What are the symptoms

Answer 2

Loss of memory, attention, language, problem solving and cognitive abilities

Question 3

What are the details about the APOE genes

Answer 3

3 is normal risk
2 is reduced risk
4 is increased risk

Question 4

What are the cellular halmarks?

Answer 4

Amyloid beta plaque formation and hyperphosphorilation of tau

Question 5

How are amyloid beta plaques formed?

Answer 5

Normally, alpha and beta secretase cut amyloid fragments. If instead beta and gamma do this, a toxic form is created that accumulates in the brain, causing neural degradation

Question 6

Explain how tau causes AD

Answer 6

Tau regulates the stability of microtubules in the brain. If it gets hyperphosphorilated, Microtubules get destabilized, become fragmented and form tangles

Question 7

What are other AD pathologies?

Answer 7

Cholinergic dysfunction - Cholinergic deficit may lead to AD
Inflammation
Clearance problems (RAGE-LRP) LRP clears abeta from the brain, RAGE imports it. So LRP is dysfunctional
Cholesterol metabolism - High cholesterol increases the chance of abeta deposition
Insulin dysfunction - Insulin dysfunction triggers amyloid beta formation (diabetis T3)
Direct infection

Question 8

How do we treat plaque formation?

Answer 8

With beta secretase inhibitors such as rosiglitazone

Question 9

How do we treat the cholinergic defecit

Answer 9

With AchE-i such as donepezil, rivastigmin and galantamin.

Also with NMDAi memantine

Question 10

How do we treat Tau?

Answer 10

With methylene blue