An Updated Overview of Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia [1]. Patients diagnosed with AD experience disordered cognition and memory, as well as changes in behaviour and personality [2]. The vast majority of AD is diagnosed in patients aged over 65 years and classified as late onset (LOAD), with the remaining ~1% of cases termed early onset AD (EOAD) [3]. The molecular neuropathology of AD includes the presence of extracellular amyloid beta (Ab)
plaques and proteinaceous lesions of aggregated neuronal tau protein across multiple brain regions [4,5]. Implicated regions include brainstem structures as the origin of progressive neurodegeneration [6,7], which then follows a predictable spreading pattern to the cholinergic basal forebrain [8], the (trans)entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, and the neocortex [9].