Alzheimer's disease

Question 1

What is the most common type of dementia?

Answer 1

Alzheimer’s disease

Question 2

What are some of the histopathological features of Alzheimers?

Answer 2

Amyloid plaques: Neuritic plaques and diffuse plaques

Neurofibrillary tangles

Question 3

What are neuritic plaques?

Answer 3

large bulbous structures that are dystrophic and degenerating.

Question 4

What are diffuse plaques?

Answer 4

plaques that contain b-amyloid protein fibres

Question 5

Who was the first to discover neurofibrillary tangles?

Answer 5

Alois Alzheimer

Question 6

In the pre-clinical stages of Alzheimers, what causes the amyloid plaques?

Answer 6

The release of AB peptides from the amyloid precursor protein which then damages neuronal processes and synapses

Question 7

Mutations at or near to chromosome 21 have been discovered in familial AD

Answer 7

Amyloid hypothesis- chromosome 21 contains the APP gene. People with Down’s syndrome invariably develop AD and they have an extra copy of chromosome 21.

Question 8

The Amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer’s states that AD is characterised by….

Answer 8

amyloid plaques which contain mainly aggregated AB derived from amyloid precursor protein (APP)

Question 9

What are the 3 major risk factors of AD?

Answer 9

Age, family history and sex (higher prevalence in females after 75yrs)

Question 10

What is the main risk factor for Familial AD?

Answer 10

genetic mutations

Question 11

What is the only know risk factor of Sporadic AD?

Answer 11

Apolipoprotein

Question 12

Familial AD is a rare form of AD, only affecting less than __% of AD patients.

Answer 12

10

Question 13

All FAD is early-onset and it caused by mutations on which chromosomes?

Answer 13

1, 14 and 21 (APP)

Question 14

Apolipoprotein is the only known risk for Sporadic AD. It increases your susceptibility but there is no causal relationship. What is APOE?

Answer 14

A substance that carries cholesterol in the bloodstream

Question 15

E2, E3 and E4 are alleles of the apolipoprotein. Which one is the most common in the general population?

Answer 15

E3

Question 16

Name a neurotransmitter that is important for memory?

Answer 16

acetylcholine

Question 17

What are the two types of acetylcholine receptors?

Answer 17

muscarinic and nicotinic

Question 18

The Cholinergic hypothesis of geriatric memory dysfunction states that significant functional disturbances of the _____ occur in aged and demented people.

Answer 18

cholinergic systems

Question 19

Cholinergic hypothesis: there is a correlation between severity of dementia and _____________ activity and cell loss in cholinergic cells.

Answer 19

cholineacetyltransferase activity (chAT)

Question 20

What is one piece of evidence supporting the Cholinergic hypothesis?

Answer 20

Cholinergic antagonists induce amnesia in people and animals

Question 21

What is the current treatment of AD?

Answer 21

Donepezil (Aricept)- acetylcholinesterase inhibitor

Question 22

What test do physicians use to diagnose AD?

Answer 22

Mini-mental state examination

Question 23

Moran et al (1995) found that transgenic mice expressing human form of APP with a mutation had _____-________ disrupted ________ _______ in water maze

Answer 23

age-dependent, spatial memory.