ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

Dementia is a degenerative manifestation in mental functions such as memory, visual perception, language skills, problem-solving, and the ability to focus and pay attention up to the point that interferes with daily life more than levels acceptable within the aging process. The nature and cause of the majority of these dysfunctions are damage or death of brain cells because of insufficient oxygenation, excessive protein accumulation or hardening of arteries. Alzheimer’s is the 7th leading cause of death in the United States and one of the most common neurodegenerative forms of dementia featured with plaques as an abnormal buildup of Beta-Amyloid protein between brain cells and tangles of Tau protein inside the brain’s nerve cells which leads to the death of cells and loss of connection between neurons with ensuing shrinkage of brain tissue (MedlinePlus, 2020). What causes the misfolded Amyloid proteins to build up between brain nerve cells?

These damages initially appear to take place in the hippocampus, an elongated portion of the cerebral cortex situated deep into the temporal lobe, which has a major role in learning and memory with vulnerability to a variety of stimuli.

Very early in evolutionary development, the Hippocampus originated as part of the olfactory cortex and became important in determining the importance of incoming sensory signals to guide lower animals to smell danger or particular edible; therefore, the rest of the brain, called the hippocampus for decision making and if neuronal input was important then the information was committed to memory. This habituation to stimuli suggests that the hippocampus translates short-term memory into long-term. When a portion of the hippocampus was surgically removed bilaterally in a few humans to treat epilepsy, it proved that consolidation of verbal or symbolic thinking to long-term memories was poor or did not take place. (Hall, 2016)

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