scholarly journals Visual Features in Alzheimer’s Disease: From Basic Mechanisms to Clinical Overview

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Alejandra Cerquera-Jaramillo ◽  
Mauricio O. Nava-Mesa ◽  
Rodrigo E. González-Reyes ◽  
Carlos Tellez-Conti ◽  
Alejandra de-la-Torre

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia worldwide. It compromises patients’ daily activities owing to progressive cognitive deterioration, which has elevated direct and indirect costs. Although AD has several risk factors, aging is considered the most important. Unfortunately, clinical diagnosis is usually performed at an advanced disease stage when dementia is established, making implementation of successful therapeutic interventions difficult. Current biomarkers tend to be expensive, insufficient, or invasive, raising the need for novel, improved tools aimed at early disease detection. AD is characterized by brain atrophy due to neuronal and synaptic loss, extracellular amyloid plaques composed of amyloid-beta peptide (Aβ), and neurofibrillary tangles of hyperphosphorylated tau protein. The visual system and central nervous system share many functional components. Thus, it is plausible that damage induced by Aβ, tau, and neuroinflammation may be observed in visual components such as the retina, even at an early disease stage. This underscores the importance of implementing ophthalmological examinations, less invasive and expensive than other biomarkers, as useful measures to assess disease progression and severity in individuals with or at risk of AD. Here, we review functional and morphological changes of the retina and visual pathway in AD from pathophysiological and clinical perspectives.

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Colin Kanach ◽  
Jan K. Blusztajn ◽  
Andre Fischer ◽  
Ivana Delalle

The neurological damage of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is thought to be irreversible upon onset of dementia-like symptoms, as it takes years to decades for occult pathologic changes to become symptomatic. It is thus necessary to identify individuals at risk for the development of the disease before symptoms manifest in order to provide early intervention. Surrogate markers are critical for early disease detection, stratification of patients in clinical trials, prediction of disease progression, evaluation of response to treatment, and also insight into pathomechanisms. Here, we review the evidence for a number of microRNAs that may serve as biomarkers with possible mechanistic insights into the AD pathophysiologic processes, years before the clinical manifestation of the disease.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 346-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naveed Fazili ◽  
Aabgeena Naeem ◽  
Ghulam Ashraf ◽  
Siew Gan ◽  
Mohammad Kamal

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Süß ◽  
Johannes C.M. Schlachetzki

: Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the most frequent neurodegenerative disorder. Although proteinaceous aggregates of extracellular Amyloid-β (Aβ) and intracellular hyperphosphorylated microtubule- associated tau have long been identified as characteristic neuropathological hallmarks of AD, a disease- modifying therapy against these targets has not been successful. An emerging concept is that microglia, the innate immune cells of the brain, are major players in AD pathogenesis. Microglia are longlived tissue-resident professional phagocytes that survey and rapidly respond to changes in their microenvironment. Subpopulations of microglia cluster around Aβ plaques and adopt a transcriptomic signature specifically linked to neurodegeneration. A plethora of molecules and pathways associated with microglia function and dysfunction has been identified as important players in mediating neurodegeneration. However, whether microglia exert either beneficial or detrimental effects in AD pathology may depend on the disease stage. : In this review, we summarize the current knowledge about the stage-dependent role of microglia in AD, including recent insights from genetic and gene expression profiling studies as well as novel imaging techniques focusing on microglia in human AD pathology and AD mouse models.


GeroScience ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin S. Latimer ◽  
Nicole F. Liachko

AbstractAlzheimer’s disease (AD) is traditionally defined by the presence of two types of protein aggregates in the brain: amyloid plaques comprised of the protein amyloid-β (Aβ) and neurofibrillary tangles containing the protein tau. However, a large proportion (up to 57%) of AD patients also have TDP-43 aggregates present as an additional comorbid pathology. The presence of TDP-43 aggregates in AD correlates with hippocampal sclerosis, worse brain atrophy, more severe cognitive impairment, and more rapid cognitive decline. In patients with mixed Aβ, tau, and TDP-43 pathology, TDP-43 may interact with neurodegenerative processes in AD, worsening outcomes. While considerable progress has been made to characterize TDP-43 pathology in AD and late-onset dementia, there remains a critical need for mechanistic studies to understand underlying disease biology and develop therapeutic interventions. This perspectives article reviews the current understanding of these processes from autopsy cohort studies and model organism-based research, and proposes targeting neurotoxic synergies between tau and TDP-43 as a new therapeutic strategy for AD with comorbid TDP-43 pathology.


2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arpita Chakraborty ◽  
Samir Kumar Praharaj ◽  
R. V. Krishnananda Prabhu ◽  
M. Mukhyaprana Prabhu

AbstractBackgroundMore than half portion of the brain is formed by lipids. They play critical roles in maintaining the brain's structural and functional components. Any dysregulation in these brain lipids can lead to cognitive dysfunction which are associated with neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, vascular dementia etc. Studies have linked lipids with cognitive impairment. But not much has been studied about the complex brain lipids which might play a pivotal role in cognitive impairment. This review aims to highlight the lipidomic profiles in patients with cognitive dysfunction.ResultsForty-five articles were reviewed. These studies show alterations in complex lipids such as sphingolipids, phospholipids, glycolipids and sterols in brain in various neurological disorders such as vascular dementia, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. However, the classes of fatty acids in these lipids involved are different across studies.ConclusionsThere is a need for targeted lipidomics analysis, specifically including sphingolipids in patients with neurodegenerative disorders so as to improve diagnostics as well as management of these disorders.


CNS Spectrums ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (S1) ◽  
pp. 11-14
Author(s):  
Jeffrey L. Cummings

AbstractWe appear to be on the brink of a new epoch of treatment for Alzheimer's disease. Compelling evidence suggests that Aβ42 secretion is the triggering event in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease, and that tau aggregation may be an important secondary event linked to neurodegeneration. Prophylactic administration of anti-amyloid agents designed to prevent Aβ accumulation in persons with subclinical disease is likely to be more effective than therapeutic interventions in established Alzheimer's disease. Drug development programs in Alzheimer's disease focus primarily on agents with anti-amyloid disease-modifying properties, and many different pharmacologic approaches to reducing amyloid pathology and tauopathy are being studied. Classes of therapeutic modalities currently in advanced-stage clinical trial testing include forms of immunotherapy (active β -amyloid immunoconjugate and human intravenous immunoglobulin), a γ-secretase inhibitor, the selective Aβ42-lowering agent R-flurbiprofen, and the anti-aggregation agent tramiprosate. Non-traditional dementia therapies such as the HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins), valproate, and lithium are now being assessed for clinical benefit as anti-amyloid disease-modifying treatments. Positive findings of efficacy and safety from clinical studies are necessary but not sufficient to demonstrate that a drug has disease-modifying properties. Definitive proof of disease-modification requires evidence from validated animal models of Alzheimer's disease; rigorously controlled clinical trials showing a significantly improved, stabilized, or slowed rate of decline in cognitive and global function compared to placebo; and prospectively obtained evidence from surrogate biomarkers that the treatment resulted in measurable biological changes associated with the underlying disease process.


2021 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 1533-1546
Author(s):  
Mithilesh Prakash ◽  
Mahmoud Abdelaziz ◽  
Linda Zhang ◽  
Bryan A. Strange ◽  
Jussi Tohka ◽  
...  

Background: Quantitatively predicting the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in an individual on a continuous scale, such as the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive (ADAS-cog) scores, is informative for a personalized approach as opposed to qualitatively classifying the individual into a broad disease category. Objective: To evaluate the hypothesis that the multi-modal data and predictive learning models can be employed for future predicting ADAS-cog scores. Methods: Unimodal and multi-modal regression models were trained on baseline data comprised of demographics, neuroimaging, and cerebrospinal fluid based markers, and genetic factors to predict future ADAS-cog scores for 12, 24, and 36 months. We subjected the prediction models to repeated cross-validation and assessed the resulting mean absolute error (MAE) and cross-validated correlation (ρ) of the model. Results: Prediction models trained on multi-modal data outperformed the models trained on single modal data in predicting future ADAS-cog scores (MAE12, 24 & 36 months= 4.1, 4.5, and 5.0, ρ12, 24 & 36 months= 0.88, 0.82, and 0.75). Including baseline ADAS-cog scores to prediction models improved predictive performance (MAE12, 24 & 36 months= 3.5, 3.7, and 4.6, ρ12, 24 & 36 months= 0.89, 0.87, and 0.80). Conclusion: Future ADAS-cog scores were predicted which could aid clinicians in identifying those at greater risk of decline and apply interventions at an earlier disease stage and inform likely future disease progression in individuals enrolled in AD clinical trials.


Author(s):  
Sijia Wu ◽  
Mengyuan Yang ◽  
Pora Kim ◽  
Xiaobo Zhou

Abstract A-to-I RNA editing, contributing to nearly 90% of all editing events in human, has been reported to involve in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) due to its roles in brain development and immune regulation, such as the deficient editing of GluA2 Q/R related to cell death and memory loss. Currently, there are urgent needs for the systematic annotations of A-to-I RNA editing events in AD. Here, we built ADeditome, the annotation database of A-to-I RNA editing in AD available at https://ccsm.uth.edu/ADeditome, aiming to provide a resource and reference for functional annotation of A-to-I RNA editing in AD to identify therapeutically targetable genes in an individual. We detected 1676 363 editing sites in 1524 samples across nine brain regions from ROSMAP, MayoRNAseq and MSBB. For these editing events, we performed multiple functional annotations including identification of specific and disease stage associated editing events and the influence of editing events on gene expression, protein recoding, alternative splicing and miRNA regulation for all the genes, especially for AD-related genes in order to explore the pathology of AD. Combing all the analysis results, we found 108 010 and 26 168 editing events which may promote or inhibit AD progression, respectively. We also found 5582 brain region-specific editing events with potentially dual roles in AD across different brain regions. ADeditome will be a unique resource for AD and drug research communities to identify therapeutically targetable editing events. Significance: ADeditome is the first comprehensive resource of the functional genomics of individual A-to-I RNA editing events in AD, which will be useful for many researchers in the fields of AD pathology, precision medicine, and therapeutic researches.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document