Alzheimer's Disease and Mechanism-Based Attempts to Enhance Cognition

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the leading neurodegenerative disease worldwide and the expected rise in patient numbers is a critical threat to our health care systems. Current treatment strategies are of limited efficacy and only transiently active. Thus, there is an urgent need for a better understanding of the pathomechanisms involved, the precise sequence of events, and potential drug targets. Current research strategies are based on studies on animal models of the disease and mostly focus on interference with the key pathological hallmarks, beta-amyloid peptide accumulation and deposition and the neurofibrillary tangle formation. Further efforts need to be invested to complement our knowledge about AD and to identify new times and sites of therapeutic intervention.