Ask the average person what they think causes Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and they’ll probably tell you it’s something to do with plaques in the brain, whatever those may be. You can’t blame them; although nobody really knows what causes the disease, amyloid plaques have been the focus of medicine since psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer discovered unusual formations—plaques and “tangles” of proteins—in the brain of a dementia patient in 1906.
If the dieory is true, Alzheimer’s results from the malfunctioning of proteins, especially apolipoprotein E (ApoE), that carry cholesterol to the brain and help repair any injury; the plaques are clumps of amyloid-beta proteins that form between nerve cells, affecting their healthy functioning. For the AD patient, this means a progressive loss of memory, language skills, general cognitive function and motor abilities.
Drugs have been developed to combat the spread of the plaques, and a drug that specifically targets them was fast-tracked by America’s drug regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), last year.
