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0:00
This is Bill Klein at Northwestern University's
Department of Neurobiology
and the NU Cognitive Neurology
and Alzheimer's Disease Center.
I'd like to help you get started
in your investigations of Abeta
oligomers.
This is a truly exciting topic
because it has the potential
for giving us a molecular
basis for the cause, diagnosis,
and treatment of
Alzheimer's disease.
Before we get deep
into Abeta oligomers,
I'd like to take a few minutes
by going to the beginning
and start where we should.
0:33
You might recognize this famous
photo of Auguste D. She was
the first person to
be diagnosed with what
is now called Alzheimer's disease.
Auguste D. came under Alzheimer's
care in 1901 at the age of 51.
At this young age, she was
already showing severe dementia,
including greatly
reduced memory loss.
Within five years, only in her
mid-'50s, Auguste D. was dead.
Alzheimer was an investigator
as well as a clinician,
and he examined Auguste D.'s brain.
He had available to him
new stains and new methods.
And what he discovered
was that Auguste
D.'s brain was riddled with lesions.
Those lesions are illustrated on
the right, and they're of two sorts.
The two figures on the top
illustrate amyloid plaques.
These are extracellular
deposits about the size
of three or four neurons across.
At higher magnification,
as shown on the bottom,
Alzheimer discovered
neurofibrillary tangles.
These are intracellular
deposits, and they
accumulate in diseased neurons.
It is this combination
of dementia, plaques,
and tangles that now
defines the disease.
Alzheimer's is referred to as
dementia with plaques and tangles.
The fact that Auguste D. was so
young set the stage for the belief
that this is a disease
of younger people only.
And it was referred
to for a long time
as presenile dementia
of the Alzheimer's type.
Neurologists used to be taught that
Alzheimer's disease only occurs
in individuals under the age of
65, that it is extremely rare,
and that in most
circumstances, a neurologist
would never find one as a patient.
