The Role of Tau in Alzheimer's Disease

The tau hypothesis is saying that Alzheimer's disease is caused by the misfolding of the tau protein. This happens to a different reason to amyloid plaques. What we're dealing with here is something called a prion, where you have a protein coiled up and packaged in a very specific conformation. And if it's not folded properly, it's a misfolded protein, and that is called a prions.