ABSTRACT
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in modern society, afflicting an estimated three million people, most of them elderly, in the United States alone. AD is an illness of later life; its incidence steeply increases with age, and it develops in up to 15% of individuals older than 65 years of age. Potential bases for diagnostic aids can be sought among the numerous physical parameters that distinguish AD from normal elderly individuals. For example, characteristic patterns of cortical atrophy may be detectable by sophisticated high-resolution neuroimaging techniques. More direct strategies aim at measuring characteristic biochemical abnormalities of the AD brain itself by attempting to detect their traces in body fluids. The early diagnosis of such cases will be important for therapeutic intervention before a significant loss of the neuronal tissue has occurred. Neurons do not divide, and irreversibly damaged or lost circuits cannot be expected to regenerate.
