Alois Alzheimer's Disease Essay

Alzheimer 's disease (AD) was discovered by a German doctor Alois Alzheimer in 1906 when he found amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the autopsy of a woman who died of an unknown mental disease. The extracellular amyloid plaque deposits, composed of insoluble amyloid-Beta peptide were hypothesized to be the main etiological factor. “The most important abnormality is an excess of Amyloid-beta peptides brought about through either overproduction or failure in degradation.” (Uzun, Kozumplik, & Folnegović-Smalc, 2011) Later, it was discovered that intracellular neurofibrillary tangles composed of hyper-phosphorylated, helically-paired tau

In times past many people thought that memory loss was a normal occurrence for elderly people. This thinking was major reason for why Alzheimer’s disease was not caught until very later in the stages. Alzheimer’s disease is not a normal part of aging. After heart disease, cancer, and strokes, Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of death in adults in the Western world. “It is estimated that 4.5 million Americans over the age of 65 are affected with this condition. After the age of 65, the incidence of the disease doubles every five years and, by age 85, it will affect nearly half of the population” (Robinson).

1.1 Dementia is an umbrella term for a range of diseases that affect memory, behaviour and motor skills. The causes vary depending on the disease but largely the presence of “plaques” and “tangles” on the neurons of the brain is found in people with Alzheimer’s. Plaques are protein that the body no longer breaks down and allows to build up; these get between the neurons and disrupt the message transmission. Tangles destroy a vital cell transport system made of proteins. The transport system is organised in orderly parallel strands like rail tracks. In healthy areas a protein call “tau” helps the tracks stay straight but in areas where tangles

The loss of cognitive function is associated with fewer nerve cells and synapses than the normal brain. The neurons demise is thought to be from the formation of plaques and tangles. The formation of these plaques and tangles can begin many years before the person becomes symptomatic of AD. The formation of plagues comes from the breaking down of a protein in the cell membrane into protein fragments called beta-amyloid. The YouTube video, NIH: Unraveling the Mystery of Alzheimer's Disease, provides a clear animation how the beta-amyloid plaques are formed as these sticky fragments begin to clump together. (National Institutes of Health, 2011) The video shows another protein called tau, involved with formation of tangles. The tau protein is instrumental in the transport of food molecules, parts of cells, and key building materials and is compared to a railroad track system. The tracks become unraveled and form tangles. In the earliest stages of the disease, the plaques, and tangles form deep inside the brain in the medial areas where learning and memory are formed, then progresses toward areas where thinking and planning occur as the neurons begin to die. Because of the billions and billions of cells in the neuron forest, the damages caused by the plaques and tangles may go undetected and be asymptomatic for

Alzheimer’s disease in many ways is not yet defined. It is a progressive disease afflicting between 5 and 15 percent of people over 65. Additionally, it is not restricted to the elderly, reportedly having

Alzheimer 's disease (AD) is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain from which there is no recovery. There are three brain abnormalities that are the hallmarks of the Alzheimer’s disease is initially caused by plaques buildup in the brain’s neurons as illustrated in figure 1. The support structure that allows the flow of the nutrients through the neurons gets damaged and ultimately there is loss of connection among the neurons and they die off (National Institute of Health, 2015). This causes the brain tissue to shrinks, which is called atrophies. All this ultimately lead the victim of this disease to face difficulties in governing emotions, recognize errors and patterns, coordinate movement, and remember. Ultimately, a person with AD loses all memory and mental functioning.

Alzheimer's disease is one of the most common causes of dementia. The term 'dementia' describes a set of symptoms, which can include memory loss, changes in mood and problems with communication and reasoning. These symptoms occur when certain diseases and conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, damage the brain. Alzheimer's disease could be described as a physical disease affecting the brain. During the course of the disease, protein 'plaques' and 'tangles' develop

Alzheimer’s is a systemic disease, meaning that it affects more than one part of the body. There are three major systems that are affected by Alzheimer’s. The first involves the Central Nervous System. The CNS includes the brain and spinal cord, allowing the nervous system to make the spinal cord and brain function. The Central Nervous System is affected because specific brain proteins begin to malfunction and brain cells die. The loss of brain cells is the reason for memory loss and

Alzheimer’s disease is a complex illness that affects the brain tissue directly and undergoes gradual memory and behavioral changes which makes it difficult to diagnose. It is known to be the most common form of dementia and is irreversible. Over four million older Americans have Alzheimer’s, and that number is expected to triple in the next twenty years as more people live into their eighties and nineties. (Johnson, 1989). There is still no cure for Alzheimer’s but throughout the past few years a lot of progress has been made.

It is a gradual neurological disease of the brain that causes irreversible problems with memory, thinking, and behavior. It begins in the part of the brain that affects learning, otherwise known as the hippocampus. Usually these microscopic changes in the brain begin long before the first signs start appearing. Studies have shown that as early as a decade before the first symptoms appear, a person with Alzheimer’s will already be undergoing neurological damage. Although researchers still do not know the exact cause of the disease, they have discovered what happens within the brain when a person is affected with Alzheimer’s. They believe that two different proteins are responsible for the death and damage of nerve cells. Plaques and tangles. Plaques are deposits of a protein fragment called beta- amyloid that build

Although at this age it effects only about 1 in every 1,000 individuals, by the age of 80, this statistic drastically elevates to 1 in every 5. It is still unclear what causes this deterioration of the brain, and why its decline correlates so strongly to age. However, many different theories have been developed such as the ‘Amyloid Cascade Hypothesis.’ Alzheimer’s disease is currently irreversible, and causes visible differences in brain tissue. The brain contains a protein called tau; it congregates in both the white and grey matter of the brain, forming tau tangles. Irregular protein called plaques are also found in the brain; these emerge when different protein gets sliced up by an enzyme in the fatty membrane surrounding nerve cells, resulting in clumped beta-amyloid proteins forming plaques. These impede cell-cell signalling between neighbouring neurons. The result of this is a loss of function including the synthesis and processing of vital neurotransmitters, for example dopamine. Plaques and neurofibrillary tangles work together to deform the brains structure, block signalling and communication between cells, and trigger immune reactions

The research into Alzheimer's Disease has come a long way since 1906 when it is was discovered by Alois Alzheimer. He detected microscopic brain tissue changes called senile and neuritic plaques in deceased patients. These are chemical deposits consisting of protein molecules called Amyloid Precursor Protein(APP) that are fundamental components of a normal brain. However in the brain of an Alzheimer patient, an enzyme cuts the APP apart and leaves fragments in the brain tissue. These combined with degenerating nerve cells cause the plaques or lesions. These lesions are found in many sections of the brain including the hippocampus which regulates emotion and memory, the basal forebrain, and especially the basal nucleus of Meynert and the cortex, where the memory function is located.(2) Another sign of a diseased brain are neurofibrillary tangles, which are malformations within nerve cells.

In 1906 a physician, named Alois Alzheimer, cared for a fifty-one year old patient with severe dementia. Upon her death, he was able to examine her brain at autopsy. Dr. Alzheimer was able to take advantage of recent innovations in microscopy and histological techniques that allowed him to study in detail the cellular components in nervous tissue. He found that the brain of his patient had severe cortical atrophy and described the neurofibrillary bundles and plaques that are now the hallmark for definitive diagnosis of what he at that time called “presenile dementia”. An account of his first patient was published in 1907. It is a little ironic that reevaluation this case has lead some to believe that this first patient did not suffer from the Alzheimer’s disease at all. Instead they believe she suffered from a different, rare disease called metachromatic leukodystrophy (Izenberg, 2000).

Although Alzheimer’s disease (henceforth: AD) has been around since the 19th century or possibly even earlier and was at a point in time classified as senile dementia, it wasn’t until 1906 following Dr. Alois Alzheimer’s encounter with Auguste Deter at a Frankfurt asylum that the name of the disease was finally coined. Since then, major developments relating to the disease has taken place. In our report, we addressed some of the areas of the history, contemporary and prospects of the disease.

However, some scientific studies show that Alzheimer disease occurs when nerve cells in numerous key areas of the brain are destroyed or damaged. The damaged or destruction of these nerve cells in the brain disrupts the information flow between the body and the brain. This disruption leads to a stable decline of both mental and physical functions. Scientists say that the destruction of the brain is most likely to be caused by the development of senile plaques (clumps) and neurofibrillary tangles (knots). These plaques and knots are usually found on the brain of a diseased person during after death biopsy. They are mostly found on the part of the brain that is associated with the memory and retention of information (National Institute Of health 10).