Going viral: could infections cause Alzheimer’s?

Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 30 million people around the world and there is no cure. For decades, research on the neurological condition has been focused on proteins known as amyloid and tau, which build up in the brains of people and prevent neurons from functioning properly. But treatments that focus on flushing those proteins out of the brain have so far proved underwhelming. A growing number of scientists, however, have a radical alternative theory. What if a virus is to blame? What if infections are the triggers that cause the build-up of amyloid and tau in the first place? 

Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, with data and science correspondent Ainslie Johnstone. Contributors: Ruth Itzhaki of the University of Oxford; Pascal Geldsetzer of Stanford University; and John Hardy of University College London.

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