Advances in Our Understanding of the Pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common age-related dementia, currently affecting more than 5 million patients in the US alone, and is characterized by the presence of both extracellular plaques and intraneuronal tangles in the brain of a patient with dementia. Alois Alzheimer first described the pathology associated with the disease over 100 years ago, and during the past three decades our understanding of the disease and of potential ways to treat it has increased tremendously. In this article we describe our current understanding of both the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease and current and future therapeutic interventions, including symptomatic relief, disease modification, and the reversal of synaptic and neuronal loss.