Disease
An important criterion of the neuropathological-histological verification of Alzheimer’s disease is the formation of senile plaques. Beta amyloid peptides associated with senile plaques have been found to play a central role in the risk, onset, and progression of Alzheimer's disease as well. Of particular importance is the longer species of beta amyloid known as beta amyloid 42. Elevated levels of beta amyloid, as well as an elevation in the ratio of beta amyloid 42 to the shorter major species of beta amyloid 40, has been identified as important in early events in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's Disease.
Other factors in Alzheimer's disease verification include pathological neurofibrillaries, tangles, and atrophic brain with hydrocephalus. The formation and the distribution of the pathological neurofibrillaries have a regularity and allows one to determine the stage of the disease. In combination with the occurrence of a great number of plaques, Alzheimer’s disease can be diagnosed with high probability. A correlation between the presence of senile plaques and Down Syndrome has also been verified.
Read more about this topic: Senile Plaques
Famous quotes containing the word disease:
“Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment.”
—Philip K. Dick (1928–1982)
“Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs.... Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily, as they breathe easily or perspire easily. But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)