Advances in Alzheimer's Disease (IOS Press) – serie

Alzheimer’s disease is a common problem that is becoming progressively more prevalent and burdensome to the world. Through better recognition of this disease and more precise diagnosis, led by brain imaging in the appropriate clinical context, it is our sincere hope that mankind can conquer this terrible disease. This handbook was developed to provide an overview of the state of the art of brain-imaging approaches that have recently emerged to reveal the critical characteristics of brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. It provides numerous chapters that examine this critical phase of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as chapters that discuss diagnosis, early biomarkers, late changes, the role of vascular disease, treatment, progression of the disease, determining the variability of the manifestation of Alzheimer’s disease, and estimating the utility of these metrics of disease severity for examining the effects of treatments. Each of 10 sections addresses a particular neuroimaging modality that has been found to be useful in understanding or diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease. Each section features an introduction to the particular technique and its potential for informing clinical care or evaluating novel therapies for Alzheimer’s patients. Chapters in each section provide clinicians with specific information as to how the particular neuroimaging technique is or can be useful in a clinical setting, from radiology to primary care, and address specific advances in the various types of neuroimaging. The book includes brief overviews of imaging of Alzheimer’s disease and reviews fundamental principles for neuroimaging pathological changes that it causes, with an emphasis on practical and future applications.

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the biggest emerging public health problems in the world. Although the last four decades have yielded important insights into the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease, its cause is still unclear, and if it is not discovered the world will face an unprecedented healthcare problem by the middle of this century.In recent years, evidence of the microbial origin of various chronic inflammatory disorders – including several neurodegenerative, neuropsychiatric and other systemic disorders – has been steadily growing. Accumulating new and historic observations are providing evidence of an association between Alzheimer’s disease and certain infectious agents, and may offer new opportunities for ground-breaking healthcare solutions.This handbook assembles and connects findings with regard to the infectious origin of Alzheimer’s disease, and the data presented in its chapters deserves the attention of the neuroscience community, physicians and the health departments of governments worldwide by virtue of its amount and quality. This handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the current knowledge regarding the topic of infection and Alzheimer’s disease, which could pinpoint the cause of this disease. Influential diagnosis, treatment and prevention strategies may also emerge from this crucial research area.

Alzheimer’s Disease: New Beginnings focuses on the future promise for therapeutic breakthroughs in light of notable clinical trial failures. The volume editors used a combination of scientometric evaluations to determine the most promising new approaches as well as soliciting insights from leaders in each of the major areas of Alzheimer’s disease research. By combining these two approaches, they recruited authors from the entire outlook spectrum, from those who feel an elusive breakthrough might still be a few, well-placed tweaks away to those who feel that they are launching entirely new investigative paradigms. These scholars present an open-eyed path forward. Now is the most exciting period in this field as old dogmas make way for new insights, from new approaches to clinical trials, improved biomarker-based diagnostics, population-based studies, prevention, metabolism, to further refinement of the role of inflammation, genetics, tau, and amyloid-ß.

Holbourne’s theory that rotational head movement and shear strains were limiting factors in producing acute parenchymal brain damage was a watershed moment in understanding traumatic brain injury (TBI). Long term effects, and in particular neurodegenerative proteinopathy subsequent to TBI, remain theoretical, notwithstanding the poorly understood ‘punch drunk’ syndrome of the early and mid-20th century, and the 21st century concept of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.This book, the Handbook of Traumatic Brain Injury and Neurodegeneration, has as its theme the marriage between neurodegenerative disease and neurotrauma through TBI surrogates such as sport, military service, and experimental models, and the legitimacy of that marriage. In the 32 contributions included here, this handbook not only explores the deleterious effects of genuine TBI, but also, and more importantly, the relationship between TBI and neurodegeneration. Controversy notwithstanding, there is much to be learned about the biological effects of TBI, substrates for long-term sequelae, the relationship between TBI and diverse neuropsychiatric disorders, and targets for therapy. The overall message to the neuroscience community from these papers may be a cautionary tale. The null hypothesis, that there is no causal relationship between TBI and progressive neurodegenerative disease, appears to be very much in play, and the book will be of interest to all those working in the field.

Most people think of Alzheimer’s disease as a condition which predominately affects elderly people, but an increasing amount of evidence indicates that in populations exposed to high concentration of air pollutants, Alzheimer’s disease development and progression can be identified in pediatric and young adulthood ages. Cognitive, olfactory, gait, equilibrium and auditory alterations are seen early, thus the concept of decades-long asymptomatic period prior to clinical cognitive impairment does not apply to the millions of people exposed day in and day out to polluted environments.This book Alzheimer's Disease and Air Pollution – The Development and Progression of a Fatal Disease from Childhood and the Opportunities for Early Prevention is a compilation of work by researchers intent on revealing the links between air pollution and neurodegeneration. The book is divided into 6 sections. It includes a section describing the ways in which air pollution from traffic and tobacco smoke can damage the brain; epidemiological studies establishing a strong link between dementia and particulate matter and ozone; papers explaining the properties of pollution; and works describing the intricate pathways which transform normal neurons into ghost tangles surrounded by a devastated brain. Air pollution is complex; different pollutants, different sizes and shapes and different portals of entry, play different roles, but their capacity to damage neural tissue is abundantly illustrated in this book, which highlights the need for preventive measures to protect the millions of people currently exposed to air pollutants, and the need to ameliorate their harmful effects.

Despite being confined to the gastrointestinal tract, the gut microbiome has a wide impact on human physiology, supplementing its host’s biochemistry in a complex symbiotic relationship. Research in the field has evolved rapidly in the last decade, and we are now developing a better understanding of how our gut microbiome can influence our immune systems, metabolism, neurological signaling, and perhaps most unexpectedly, our brains; a phenomenon described as the gut-brain-axis.This book, ‘Handbook of Microbiome and Gut-Brain-Axis in Alzheimer’s Disease’, sets out to explore the complex role of the microbiome with regard to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The microbiome is a critical and often overlooked aspect of immunity, which in turn plays a role in cognition. The book presents current research into the gut microbiota and its far-reaching impacts on cognitive function and neurodegeneration. Interventions, including probiotic supplementation, fecal transfer, and supplementation with microbial metabolites, are discussed, as is the use of certain probiotics to study the effects of the gut microbiota on behavior and cognitive function, and as potential therapeutics for AD. Other topics covered include the influence of the gut and oral microbiota on immune inflammatory signals: cytokines, neuroendocrine hormones, bacterial components, neuroactive molecules, and microbial metabolites.The book is divided into four sections, each covering a research area pertinent to the gut-brain-axis and its relationship with cognitive function and AD. It will be of interest to all those whose work includes the study and understanding of these complex, multi-variable biological mechanisms, particularly in the context of cognitive function and AD.The cover shows a color edited MRI image of a sagittal section of a neurological control brain of Dr. Giulio Maria Pasinetti.

It is almost 120 years since Alzheimer’s disease (AD) was first reported, and the concept of modifiable risk factors associated with the disease has been present from the outset. Thus, the idea of preventing AD is not new, with reference to strategies noted as early as the 1990s. This subfield of AD research has matured in recent years, with the number of modifiable risk factors – the AD preventome – rising from the 7 initially identified to the current 12, with an estimated contribution to dementia cases worldwide of about 40%. This book, the Handbook of Prevention and Alzheimer’s Disease, introduces physicians, scientists, and other stakeholders to this subfield of AD research. It investigates the AD preventome, which will continue to expand as the understanding of new factors and related biomarkers is refined. Optimizing this preventome leads to an improvement in overall brain health, an outcome which reduces the risk of developing AD and improves quality of life. The book goes on to examine other domains of prevention, from vascular risk factors to social engagement and from sleep health to spirituality. If the journey to end AD can be likened to a long and arduous challenge, understanding every possible part of the overall toolkit of approaches for disease prevention and intervention is essential.Together with its companion volume on intervention, the book provides a comprehensive overview of strategies for tackling Alzheimer’s disease, and will be of interest to all those working in the field. Cover illustration:White matter tracts showing sex differences in connectivity in men versus women as a function of increasing body mass index. Reprinted with permission from Rahmani F, Wang Q, McKay NS, Keefe S, Hantler N, Hornbeck R, Wang Y, Hassenstab J, Schindler S, Xiong C, Morris JC, Benzinger TLS, Raji CA. Sex-Specific Patterns of Body Mass Index Relationship with White Matter Connectivity. J Alzheimers Dis. 2022;86(4):1831-1848. doi: 10.3233/JAD-215329. PMID: 35180116; PMCID: PMC9108572.