Alzheimer Center

Director: Philip Scheltens

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is strongly related to ageing but the disease usually starts around the age of mid forties in the form of circulating toxic oligomers of Abeta 1-42 leading to a cascade of neurodegeneration and deposition of amyloid containing plaques, accompanied by an inflammatory process. Presently, with the exception of monogenic, autosomal dominantly inherited forms, AD is no longer thought to be one disease but a complex, multifactorial and multigenic, disease in which there is an interplay between the primary process of abnormal APP (amyloid precursus protein) processing leading to amyloid deposition, vascular factors and environmental factors.
 
Our research has focused on unraveling these factors in order to enable early diagnosis, treatment and ultimately prevention. The influence of vascular factors and their contribution to cognition and the degenerative process are good examples.The recognition of so-called atypical, non monogenetic forms of AD with early onset has boosted the understanding of subtypes of AD, which will become more important when drugs targeted at the amyloid process become available. Aside from AD, interest in young dementia in general has fuelled research into frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and dementias with parkinsonism such as PSP.


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