Alzheimer’s Disease, a Neurodegenerative Disorder Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), originally described by Aloïs

Alzheimer in 1907, is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive memory and cog-nitive impairments, making patients dependent on others in their daily life and ultimately leading to death. On the basis of neurological examination, neuropsychological testing, and brain-imaging techniques—showing severe brain atrophy, mainly in the amygdala, the hippocampus, and cortex, due to extensive neuronal loss—a clinical diagnosis can be made with reliability up to 90%. The postmortem detection of two pathological microscopic lesions, the senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, are typical for AD brains and exclude all other types of dementia, allowing a definite diagnosis. A neurofibril-lary tangle is a neuronal inclusion composed of paired helical filaments of the hyperphosphorylated protei