ABSTRACT
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disorder associated with
progressive functional decline, dementia, and neuronal loss. Demographics make evident
that the prevalence of AD will increase substantially. The pervasive societal burden
wrought by this debilitating disease should provide sufficient impetus for the development
of new natural history modifying therapeutic approaches. However, because the
mechanistic underpinnings of AD are incompletely understood, the clinical disease
spectrum broad, and the neuropathological features of its initiation and progression
limited, the development of such potential disease modifying therapies has been impeded.
Herein, we review AD pathophysiology and currently employed therapies, and
subsequently discuss experimental therapeutics predicated upon recent concepts of
immune modulation to attenuate disease progression.