The occurrence of plaque in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, long used as a marker of the disease’s onset, has been found to be one of the last events to occur in the sufferer’s brain.
The researchers identified early and late disease mechanisms and markers by studying a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease.
The results suggest that plaques occur long after memory loss, so may not be a useful early pathological marker for Alzheimer’s disease.
The plaque has been regarded as the definitive Alzheimer’s diagnosis since Alois Alzheimer first described this disease in 1906.
This is considered to be a new and important step in the current debate about how best to detect, diagnose and treat Alzheimer’s disease.
Read more at Garvan Institute