The Evolution of Alzheimer's Disease

At first, dementia was thought to be just a consequence of getting old. A series of papers established that the brains of elderly patients with dementia and younger patients with pre-senile dementia looked the same. The plaques in Alzheimer's disease and the plaques in the brains of people with Down syndrome were made of the same amyloid beta protein. It took a seminal genetic finding by John Hardy's laboratory at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London to electrify the research community.