Alzheimer’s disease is an extremely difficult condition to deal with. This is especially true for those of us who have had to deal with this disease more closely. My grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease along with Lewey Body Dementia in 2007. I watched her suffer from these terrible diseases. My grandma passed away this summer and I miss her dearly. I reminisce about her daily and it got me thinking: “where does Alzheimer’s come from?”

In Richard A. Armstrong’s full journal, “What Causes Alzheimer’s Disease?,” he mentions that there are many theories on the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. He analyzes each of 8 different categories of theories.

To begin with, one major, frequently recurring theme in the theories is aging. This theme is based on observation. According to Richard A. Armstrong, the symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease are quite similar to those of aging. Some of the symptoms of both Alzheimer’s and aging include “brain volume and weight, enlargement of ventricles, and loss of synapses and dendrites in selected areas.” After many observational studies on changes in many different regions of the brain, through both Alzheimer’s Disease and aging, the conclusion that was made is the differences between Alzheimer’s and the normal aging are quantitative rather than qualitative. The difficulties with these studies are that they are all based solely on observation. It wouldn’t be ethical to alter someone’s genetics or brain functioning, so the conclusion had to have been made based on observation.

In this particular study, the loss of connectivity in the patients brain is accredited to a wide variety of electrophysiological and neuro-imaging studies. In this study, they investigate the crossmodal effect. This is an examination of the integration of visual and auditory stimuli. They did this by using a control group, which more than likely gives a little more accuracy to the study. There is less chance for discrepancy with an experiment in comparison to the previous study that was solely observational. In their conclusion, they found that the data suggests the “occurrence of a specific, audio-visual integration deficit in AD, which might be the consequence of a connectivity breakdown.”

Everything in the brain shrinks, shrivels, or deteriorates when affected by Alzheimer’s Disease. 

(Picture found: here)

In this study, S. Yagishita, Y. Itoh, Wang Nan, and N. Amano used electron microscopy to study Alzheimer’s neurofibrillary tangles. Not only were Alzheimer’s patients used, but also two dementia patients and one supranuclear palsy patient were used. They found that in the Alzheimer’s patients, the tangles were composed of either straight filaments or paired helical filaments. After carrying out the study, Yagishita, Itoh, Nan, and Amano found that all of the Alzheimer’s patients involved had neurofibrillary tangles composed of 15-20nm SF and PHF. So if these filaments are seen separately in each neuron, it’s safe to say that Alzheimer’s disease is in the near future of that patient. Hopefully using this, scientists and doctors will be able to catch the disease earlier and be able to figure out a way to stop the disease in its tracks.

So what does this mean? Clearly there is an abundance of theories regarding the cause of Alzheimer’s.  None have been full proof in creating a cure, however. Aging is very closely related symptom-wise to Alzheimer’s Disease. There is a connectivity breakdown as the result of Alzheimer’s Disease. In Alzheimer’s patients, the tangles are composed of either straight filaments or paired helical filaments.

The hopes from all these many different theories, studies, and experiments, and many others is that soon, a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease will be found.