The Alzheimer Conundrum

Why our approaches to Alzheimer's and dementia are problematic and contradictory Due to rapidly aging populations, the number of people worldwide experiencing dementia is increasing, and the projections are grim. Despite billions of dollars invested in medical research, no effective treatment has been discovered for Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. The Alzheimer Conundrum exposes the predicaments embedded in current efforts to slow down or halt Alzheimer’s disease through early detection of pre-symptomatic biological changes in healthy individuals. Based on a meticulous account of the history of Alzheimer’s disease and extensive in-depth interviews, Margaret Lock highlights the limitations and the dissent associated with biomarker detection. Lock argues that basic research must continue, but should be complemented by a public health approach to prevention that is economically feasible, more humane, and much more effective globally than one exclusively focused on an increasingly harried search for a cure.

Due to rapidly aging populations, the number of people worldwide experiencing dementia is increasing, and the projections are grim. Despite billions of dollars invested in medical research, no effective treatment has been discovered for Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. The Alzheimer Conundrum exposes the predicaments embedded in current efforts to slow down or halt Alzheimer's disease through early detection of pre-symptomatic biological changes in healthy individuals. Based on a meticulous account of the history of Alzheimer's disease and extensive in-depth interviews, Margaret Lock highlights the limitations and the dissent associated with biomarker detection. Lock argues that basic research must continue, but should be complemented by a public health approach to prevention that is economically feasible, more humane, and much more effective globally than one exclusively focused on an increasingly harried search for a cure.

This book explores international biomedical research and development on the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. It offers timely, multidisciplinary reflections on the social and ethical issues raised by promises of early diagnostics and asks under which conditions emerging diagnostic technologies can be considered a responsible innovation. The initial chapters in this edited volume provide an overview and a critical discussion of recent developments in biomedical research on Alzheimer's disease. Subsequent contributions explore the values at stake in current practices of dealing with Alzheimer's disease and dementia, both within and outside the biomedical domain. Novel diagnostic technologies for Alzheimer's disease emerge in a complex and shifting field, full of controversies. Innovating with care requires a precise mapping of how concepts, values and responsibilities are filled in through the confrontation of practices. In doing so, the volume offers a practice-based approach of responsible innovation that is also applicable to other fields of innovation.

The End of Alzheimer's: The Brain and Beyond, Second Edition is the first comprehensive overview on the molecular basis of Alzheimer's outside of the brain, merging the most recent findings within the field into a single book. It aims to educate the reader on the many overlooked aspects of Alzheimer's disease that occur outside the brain. This book uniquely provides step-by-step, peer-reviewed evidence that the current research model may be misguided and that a new and emerging model is more accurate. It carefully outlines the molecular research in Alzheimer's outside the brain and argues that a more thorough, whole-body diagnosis will provide better answers about its causes and lead to new treatments. It is beneficial to researchers who need to be apprised of the emerging science on the causes of Alzheimer's, and will hopefully redirect many into new avenues of cellular research and discovery.

Completely rewritten and updated, this new edition is almost twice the size of its predecessor. Illustrated in colour throughout, and with contributions from the world's leading authorities, it is the definitive reference on the neuropathology of dementia. It gives practical guidance to pathologists, describes the contribution of neuroimaging to diagnosis, and surveys the clinical features of dementia. New material includes: Three entirely new chapters on neuroimaging, molecular diagnostics, and transgenic models. Two chapters on tauopathies under new authorship. A chapter under new authorship on synucleinopathies, which includes multiple system atrophy.

2-sprachiger Lektüreband mit einer Erzählung von Jonathan Frantzen und einer Audio-CD mit dem englischen Text; für Lernende mit guten Vorkenntnissen.

To understand Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the major thrusts of present-day clinical research, strongly supported by more fimdamental cellular, biochemical, immunological and structural studies. It is these latter that receive attention within this book. This compilation of 20 chapters indicates the diversity of work currently in progress and summarizes the current state of knowledge. Experienced authors who are scientifically active in their fields of study have been selected as contributors to this book, in an attempt to present a reasonably complete survey of the field. Inevitably, some exciting topics for one reason or another have not been included, for which we can only apologize. Standardization of terminology is often a problem in science, not least in the Alzheimer field; editorial effort has been made to achieve standardization between the Chapters, but some minor yet acceptable personal / author variation is still present, i. e. P-amyloid/amyloid-P; Ap42/Apl-42/APi. 42! The book commences with a broad survey of the contribution that the range of available microscopical techniques has made to the study of Alzheimer's amyloid plaques and amyloid fibrillogenesis. This chapter also serves as an Introduction to the book, since several of the topics introduced here are expanded upon in later chapters. Also, it is significant to the presence of this chapter that the initial discovery of brain plaques, by Alois Alzheimer, utilized light microscopy, a technique that continues to be extremely valuable in present-day AD research.

This book highlights the pathophysiological complexities of the mechanisms and factors that are likely to be involved in a range of neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease, other Dementia, Parkinson Diseases and Multiple Sclerosis. The spectrum of diverse factors involved in neurodegeneration, such as protein aggregation, oxidative stress, caspases and secretase, regulators, cholesterol, zinc, microglia, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, etc, have been discussed in the context of disease progression. In addition, novel approaches to therapeutic interventions have also been presented. It is hoped that students, scientists and clinicians shall find this very informative book immensely useful and thought-provoking.