Friday, July 15, 2011

ALZHEIMER's DIESEASE AN MIT LECTURE BY SRTEVEN PAUL

''In 1906, when Alois Alzheimer first described the disease that bears his name, it was a rarity; life expectancy in the US was around 50 years, and few people lived long enough to develop Alzheimer’s disease (AD). But as life expectancies have risen around the world, AD has become vastly more prevalent, and it is now one of the major public health problems of our time. In this lecture, Steven Paul, former Executive Vice President at Lilly, reviews our current understanding of the pathological mechanisms and implications for future treatments of this disease.

People with AD experience a progressive loss of memory and other cognitive abilities, the result of slow degeneration within the brain. Postmortem examination of patients’ brains reveals myriad deposits known as amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, especially within the forebrain areas that underlie memory and higher cognitive functions.'' 

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