The centennial of Alois Alzheimer's original description of the disease that would come to bear his name offers a vantage point from which to commemorate the seminal discoveries in the field. This milestone work has been guided by four of the most prominent voices in the field today, George Perry, Dean of the University of Texas at San Antonio College of Sciences and Professor of Pathology and Neurosciences, Case Western Reserve University, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease; Jesús Avila, Center for Molecular Biology, University Autónoma of Madrid, Senior Editor, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease; June Kinoshita, Executive Editor, Alzheimer Research Forum; and Mark A. Smith, Department of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, Co-Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. It traces how the true importance of AD as the major cause of late life dementia ultimately came to light and narrates the evolution of the concepts related to AD throughout the years and its recognition as a major public health problem, with an estimated 30-40 million people affected by AD today.
George Perry commented, "The book will bring to life, and in many instances revisit and reflect on, the classic studies that have essentially defined Alzheimer's disease research. My co-editors and I are extremely pleased that this project has attracted participation from nearly every single player in the field and, having read each contribution, I am convinced that the book is destined to become one of the defining works in the field."
To identify the breakthroughs, the editors have used citation analysis, landmark papers identified by current researchers, and drew upon their own experience and insights. This process took into account the perspectives of individuals who recall the impact of findings at the time they were made, as well as of scientists today who have the advantage of hindsight in weighing the lasting influence of these findings. Because modern AD research was triggered by the seminal work of Tomlinson, Blessed, and Roth some four decades ago, it is particularly fortunate that the vast majority of these milestone authors are still with us.
Each contributor was invited to discuss what made his or her particular article a milestone in the context of its time. Furthermore, contributors were asked to provide a highly personal perspective, by recounting the tale of how each discovery unfolded and by frankly describing the contradictions among studies and the debates that once took place in whispered tones in remote corners of seminar rooms and conference halls.
According to Dr. Perry, "These writings bring to the practitioner, student and interested lay person a perspective not only on the past, but also on where the Alzheimer's disease field is likely to go in the future. Only time will tell whether these milestones have charted the future accurately, but they are unquestionably the foundation upon which the future will be built."
Contact a.engelen@iospress.nl or market@iospress.nl for additional information or to schedule an interview. Visit http://www.alzheimer100.com to view the table of contents including abstracts of each article.
Alzheimer's Disease: A Century of Scientific and Clinical Research
Edited by George Perry, Jesús Avila, June Kinoshita and Mark A. Smith
July 2006, approx. 400 pages, hardcover
ISBN: 1-58603-619-x
US$150 / €120 / £82
(Will also be published as a special issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.)
TABLE of CONTENTS
Historical Perspective
Jesse F. Ballenger
Progress in the History of Alzheimer's Disease: The Importance of Context
José Manuel Martínez Lage
100 Years of Alzheimer's Disease (1906-2006)
Neuropathology
Melvyn J. Ball
The Essential Lesion of Alzheimer Disease: A Surprise in Retrospect
Heiko Braak, Udo Rüb, Christian Schultz, Kelly Del Tredici
Vulnerability of Cortical Neurons to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases
Bernardino Ghetti
Neurodegeneration and Hereditary Dementias: 40 Years of Learning
Asao Hirano and Maki Iida
Topographic Study of Alzheimer's Neurofibrillary Changes: A Personal Perspective
Kurt A. Jellinger
Clinicopathological Analysis of Dementia Disorders in the Elderly - An Update
Michael Kidd
The History of the Paired Helical Filaments
Synaptic Changes
M.M Esiri and S.A. Chance
Vulnerability to Alzheimer's Pathology in Neocortex: The Roles of Plasticity and Columnar Organization
Eliezer Masliah, Leslie Crews and Lawrence Hansen
Synaptic Remodeling during Aging and in Alzheimer's Disease
Stephen W. Scheff and Douglas A. Price
Alzheimer's Disease-Related Alterations in Synaptic Density: Neocortex and Hippocampus
Robert D. Terry
My Own Experience in Early Research on Alzheimer Disease
Amyloid
Karen H. Ashe
Molecular Basis of Memory Loss in the Tg2576 Mouse Model of Alzheimer Disease
Massimo Tabaton and Pierluigi Gambetti
Soluble Amyloid-ß in the Brain: The Scarlet Pimpernel
Dora Games, Manuel Buttini, Dione Kobayashi, Dale Schenk and Peter Seubert
Mice as Models: Transgenic Approaches and Alzheimer's Disease
John Hardy
The Amyloid Cascade Hypothesis: An update and Reappraisal
Colin L Masters and Konrad Beyreuther
Pathways to the Discovery of the Aß Amyloid of Alzheimer's Disease
Dennis J. Selkoe
Amyloid ß-Peptide Is Produced by Cultured Cells during Normal Metabolism: A Reprise
Tau
Jesús Avila
Tau Protein, the Main Component of Paired Helical Filaments
Jean-Pierre Brion
Immunological Demonstration of Tau Protein in Neurofibrillary Tangles of Alzheimer's Disease
André Delacourte
The Natural and Molecular History of Alzheimer's Disease
Michel Goedert, Aaron Klug and R. Anthony Crowther
Tau Protein, the Paired Helical Filament and Alzheimer's Disease
Yasuo Ihara
Neurofibrillary Tangles/Paired Helical Filaments (1981-83)
Khalid Iqbal and Inge Grundke-Iqbal
Discoveries of Tau, Abnormally Hyperphosphorylated Tau and Others of Neurofibrillary Degeneration: A Personal Historical Perspective
Gail V.W. Johnson
Tau Phosphorylation and Proteolysis: Insights and Perspectives
Kenneth S. Kosik
Traveling the Tau Pathway: A Personal Account
Virginia M.-Y. Lee and John Q. Trojanowski
Progress from Alzheimer's Tangles to Pathological Tau Points Towards More Effective Therapies Now
Disease Mechanisms
Peter Davies
A Long Trek Down the Pathways of Cell Death in Alzheimer's Disease
Patrick L. McGeer, Joseph Rogers and Edith G. McGeer
Inflammation, Antiinflammatory Agents and Alzheimer Disease: The Last 12 Years
Ralph A. Nixon and Anne M Cataldo
Lysosomal System Pathways: Genes to Neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's Disease
Daniel P. Perl, Sharon Moalem
Aluminum and Alzheimer's Disease, A Personal Perspective After 25 Years
George Perry
When Is the Insoluble Solvable?
Mark A. Smith
Oxidative Stress and Iron Imbalance in Alzheimer Disease: How Rust Became the Fuss!
Akihiko Takashima
GSK-3 Is Essential in the Pathogenesis of Alzheimer's Disease
F.W.van Leeuwen, E.M. Hol and D.F. Fischer
Frameshift Proteins in Alzheimer's Disease and in Other Conformational Disorders: Time for the Ubiquitin-Proteasome System
Genetics
Efrat Levy, Frances Prelli and Blas Frangione
Studies on the First Described Alzheimer's Disease Amyloid ß Mutant, the Dutch Variant
Alison Goate
Segregation of a Missense Mutation in the Amyloid ß-Protein Precursor Gene with Familial Alzheimer's Disease
Dmitry Goldgaber
The Discovery and Mapping to Chromosome 21 of the Alzheimer Amyloid Gene: My Story
Allen D. Roses
On the Discovery of the Genetic Association of Apolipoprotein E Genotypes and Common Late-Onset Alzheimer Disease
Gerard D. Schellenberg
Early Alzheimer's Disease Genetics
Maria Grazia Spillantini, Jill R. Murrell, Michel Goedert, Martin Farlow, Aaron Klug and Bernardino Ghetti
Mutations in the Tau gene (MAPT) in FTDP-17: the family with Multiple System Tauopathy with Presenile Dementia (MSTD)
Ekaterina Rogaeva, Toshitaka Kawarai and Peter St George-Hyslop
Genetic Complexity of Alzheimer's Disease: Successes and Challenges
Christine Van Broeckhoven and Samir Kumar-Singh
Genetics and Pathology of Alpha-Secretase Site AßPP Mutations in Understanding of Alzheimer's Disease
Diagnosis and Treatment
Jesse Skoch, Bradley T. Hyman and Brian J. Bacskai
Preclinical Characterization of Amyloid Imaging Probes with Multiphoton Microscopy
Zaven Khachaturian
Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease: Two-Decades of Progress
Ian G. McKeith
Consensus Guidelines for the Clinical and Pathologic Diagnosis of Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB): Report of the Consortium on DLB International Workshop
Dave Morgan
Immunotherapy for Alzheimer's Disease
Beka Solomon
Alzheimer's Disease Immunotherapy: From in vitro Amyloid Immunomodulation to in vivo Vaccination
William Summers
Tacrine and Alzheimer's Treatments
Peter J. Whitehouse
Quality of Life: The Bridge from the Cholinergic Basal Forebrain to Cognitive Science and Bioethics
About the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (www.j-alz.com) is an international multidisciplinary journal to facilitate progress in understanding the etiology, pathogenesis, epidemiology, genetics, behavior, treatment and psychology of Alzheimer's disease. The journal publishes research reports, reviews, short communications, book reviews, and letters-to-the-editor. The journal is dedicated to providing an open forum for original research that will expedite our fundamental understanding of Alzheimer's disease.