Environmental neurotoxicants push the aging brain towards late-onset Alzheimer's disease.
What is it about?
The molecular and cellular data on Alzheimer's disease and neurotoxicity that are available in the public domain were structured according to key events describing toxic tau-protein mediated memory loss. Neurotoxic environmental compounds were found to be able to plug into Alzheimer's disease relevant processes. Over 20 molecular initiating events affecting Alzheimer's disease initiation and early development were identified.
Why is it important?
While over the years mechanistic data have been produced describing the clinical phase of early onset Alzheimer's disease, little is still known about the early (non-clinical) phases of late onset Alzheimer's disease. While aging and genetics play a role in late-onset Alzheimer's disease, evidence strongly suggests that environmental and systemic risk factors play an important role. The collected and structures data identified the toxic tau-protein driven adverse pathway as a plausible pathway towards memory loss. From the collected data it was also clear that this pathway is only one of a network of pathways that contribute to late-onset Alzheimer's disease initiation and development.