Alzheimer's Neuropathology

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Neuropathology of Alzheimer’s disease
Introduction
Dementia is a chronic disorder of mental processing/thoughts. This can be caused by a broad category of brain diseases or even severe injury to the brain. An observation of dementia is that there is a long term gradual decrease in a person’s ability to think and remember things, which remarkably affects their daily activities and functions. There are four common types of dementia which are Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia and frontotemporal dementia. The main focus of this paper is on Alzheimer’s disease which also happens to be the most common type of dementia. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) usually consists of 50% - 70% of patients …show more content…
The brain is made up of neurons which are interconnected to form a vast network. These connections consist of synapsis which enables the transmission of information from one neuron to another. In the case of AD, two main and distinct lesions form in the brain (formation begins years before symptoms are apparent). These lesions consist of senile plaques (composed of beta-amyloid proteins) and neurofibrillary tangles (composed of Tau proteins). The formation of senile plaques occurs when amyloid-beta is released during the sectioning/breakdown of amyloid precursor proteins APP (a large protein found on the surface of the neurons). Usually in healthy individuals, amyloid-beta is degraded/cleared out of the brain but in individuals with Alzheimer’s the protein is forms into a dimer and the trimers, these trimers collectively assembles into oligomers that become insoluble fibers. The oligomers float into the synapse and disconnect nerves cells that transmit information/memory. The disconnection also causes the nerve cells to die out. A buildup of amyloid-beta proteins is called an amyloid plaque. Over the years, experiments have shown that the large amyloid plaque is less toxic because it cannot float into the synapses. This is also based on the assumption that Alzheimer’s disease is formed as a result of the production and removal of the beta-amyloid
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