Late-onset Alzheimer's disease

Professor Donna Wilcock discusses late-onset Alzheimer's disease, which involves the clearance and/or production of the amyloid beta protein.

Late-onset Alzheimer’s disease is really of no known cause yet. We really don’t know that causes this. The field is leaning toward it being less of an amyloid production problem and more of an amyloid clearance problem. We think there is a fine balance between production and clearance of amyloid beta [a-beta] peptides. Let’s say you shift it one way, where you are increasing production but clearance stays the same, we think this is what happens in the familial Alzheimer’s disease where we see these mutations. But if you shift it the other way, and now production stays the same, but you’re less able to clear that a-beta out of the brain, now you’re going to start accumulating the amyloid beta. We think this is what happens in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease and we don’t really know why.