An Effective Model of Alzheimer\u27s Disease

Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease that develops in elderly people. It is a major national public health concern and researchers are searching for a cure through the use of animal models. In order to determine an effective model of AD in humans, an animal model must display both the major cognitive and biological symptoms of the disease. Cognitively, all three stages of AD show deficits in delayed recall. Additionally, preclinical AD is characterized by a unique deficit in immediate recall (Bondi et al., 1994), MCI by a deficit in executive function (Bondi et al., 1994, Blackwell et al., 2004), and AD by a deficit in semantic memory (Estevez- Gonzalez et al., 2003, Junkkila et al., 2012, Chen et al., 2013). Biologically, the animal should exhibit beta-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, the two major hallmarks of the disease (Hardy & Selkoe, 2002). In order to find a valid model, more research is needed to correlate the cognitive and biological symptoms of AD in animal models. Non-human primate models, particularly the squirrel monkey, should be further pursued