Biomarkers and Their Implications in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Literature Review

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder with a complex pathology that is not completely understood. Over time, AD reduces one's cortical and subcortical functioning. The incidence and prevalence of AD is projected to increase as the worldwide population continues to grow older. While advances in the field of neurology and medicine continue to improve, there are presently no novel therapeutic agents to prevent, halt, or cure patients suffering from AD. The utilization of biomarkers that aid the diagnostic algorithm, drug response monitoring and disease progression that add to further our understanding of the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative disease is vastly expanding. The significance of amyloid plaque deposition, tau pathology, and neurofibrillary tangle accumulation have been well-studied in the realm of neurodegenerative diseases for decades and are proposed biomarkers. However, it has been difficult to stratify physiological biomarkers of blood/plasma, cerebrospinal fluid, saliva/urine/hair/nail for diagnostic utility and overall understanding in the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration. We aim to review the most relevant, up-to-date biomarkers and their implications in AD.

Pathways to healing: Plants with therapeutic potential for neurodegenerative diseases

“…Memory impairment is a common feature of a number of NDs including AD, ALS, HD, MS, VD and paediatric NDs such as Batten disease ( Arlt, 2013 ), in which underlying pathologies contribute to the neuronal cell insults that result in the amnestic symptoms (reviewed by Marcucci and Kleiman, 2021 ).…”

Symptoms of Dementia in Elderly Persons Using Waveform Features of Pupil Light Reflex

“…Though various clinical aspects of AD patients or patients with dementia, such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have been studied, the typical features which present AD symptoms have not yet been examined. Major diagnostic tools are almost always based on clinical and pathological measurement such as brain imaging and certain biomarkers [23,27] while clinical surveillance is frequently preferred using medical consultations.…”

Therapeutic roles of plants for 15 hypothesised causal bases of Alzheimer’s disease

“…Tau is a protein regulating the function of microtubules, its microtubule binding affinity being determined by its phosphorylation [85]. In AD, tau becomes hyperphosphorylated, aggregating into toxic neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) within neurons [86,87]. Moreover, tau may have a pathogenic role in mediating Aβ toxicity in AD [88].…”