Definition
Alzheimer’s disease (AD), named after the psychiatrist and neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer, is an age-associated, chronic, and progressive neurodegenerative illness and the most common cause of neurocognitive disorder (dementia) in the elderly. AD is characterized by a disease duration of two to four decades, starting with 10–20 years of biochemical, cellular, and neurodegenerative changes in the brain (the preclinical or pre-symptomatic phase). In this initial stage, neuropathological changes appear in the brain, such as extracellular amyloid plaque deposits, intraneuronal neurofibrillary tangles, and brain atrophy. This stage is followed by at first subtle but not debilitating cognitive symptoms, finally leading into a progressive worsening and impairment of executive functions (the clinical or symptomatic phase), which makes an unassisted life impossible (Aisen et al. 2017). Age is the...
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Multhaup, G., Liebsch, F. (2020). Alzheimer’s Disease. In: Offermanns, S., Rosenthal, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Molecular Pharmacology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21573-6_262-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21573-6_262-1
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