Introduction

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain from which there is no recovery. The disease slowly attacks nerve cells in all parts of the cortex of the brain and some surrounding structures, thereby impairing a person's abilities to govern emotions, recognize errors and patterns, coordinate movement, and remember. Ultimately, a person with AD loses memory and many other mental functions.

Click the icon to see an animation about Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia in people age 65 years and older. Dementia is significant loss of cognitive functions such as memory, judgment, attention, and abstract thinking.

There are three brain abnormalities that are the hallmarks of the Alzheimer’s disease process:

• Plaques. A protein called beta-amyloid accumulates and forms sticky clumps of amyloid plaque between nerve cells (neurons). High levels of beta amyloid are associated with reduced levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. (Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers in the brain.) Acetylcholine is part of the cholinergic system, which is essential for memory and learning and is progressively destroyed in Alzheimer’s disease.
• Tangles. Neurofibrillary tangles are the damaged remains of macrotubules, the support structure that allows the flow of nutrients through the neurons. A key feature of these tangled fibers is an abnormal form of the tau protein, which in its normal version helps maintain healthy neurons.
• Loss of nerve cell connections. The tangles and plaques cause neurons to lose their connection to one another and die off. As the neurons die, brain tissue shrinks (atrophies).

Review Date: 06/22/2010
Reviewed By: Harvey Simon, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Physician, Massachusetts General Hospital. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.

A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org)