Tracking the insidious course of Alzheimer's disease

Determining the sequence of events that occurs in Alzheimers disease and the extent of the pathological changes involved will be essential for devising appropriate therapeutic strategies for this disease, but these parameters are not well defined. A recent study analyzed a number of clinical, cognitive and biological biomarkers allowing them to trace the series of pathological changes that occur over time in Alzheimers disease. Notably, the authors found that some changes could be observed 25 years before the expected onset of symptoms. These findings may have important implications for the design of clinical trials to test Alzheimers disease therapies.