History of Alzheimer's Disease

This summer, I got the opportunity of a lifetime with my internship at a renowned neurology lab at MGH. I am learning so much, not just about scientific processes and research procedures, but also about Alzheimer's disease, a terrible disease afflicting over 35 million people worldwide. Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive (and currently incurable) brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, eventually leading to the inability to carry out even the most basic tasks such as walking and dressing. The lab focuses on the pathological pathway to Alzheimer’s disease, which is still not fully understood. More about my lab research can be found at https://www.massgeneral.org/neurology/research/tanzi-lab-genetics-and-aging. 

Alzheimer's disease was first studied by (and is named after) Dr. Alois Alzheimer who was treating a patient with mental illness with severe memory loss, language problems, and unpredictable behavior.  After her death in 1906, Dr. Alzheimer examined her brain and found many abnormal clumps and tangled bundles of fibers. He had discovered amyloid plaques and tau tangles, which are still considered the key features of Alzheimer's disease and the subject of much research worldwide, including in the lab I work at. 

The neurons in a normal brain and in a brain affected by Alzheimer's disease.

In keeping with this blog's theme, I decided to explore the history of Alzheimer's Disease. I was curious to know if this common (and seemingly inevitable) disease existed in the ancient world and if it had any connection to ancient medicine. 

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the first to discover the existence of Alzheimer's disease were the Egyptians back in 2000 BCE when they noted the loss of memory in older people. But they, as well as ancient Greek scholars including Hippocrates, Pythagoras, and Plato, attributed memory loss and mental decline simply to the process of aging and not as a disease. There was however, one Roman scholar, Marcus Cicero (the famous Greek lawyer who is revered in Classical literature!), who noted that it was not just caused by old age because aging did not always cause a decline in mental capacity and dementia. He should really be considered the father of Alzheimer's disease research because he was the first to recognize that it was not a natural phenomenon of aging and likely had a specific cause. But unfortunately, soon after that, the Roman Empire began to decline and scientific thought processes took a big hit with the advent of the Middle Ages, and the thought did not progress for centuries. In fact, in the Middle Ages, often called the Dark Ages, dementia was simply considered a punishment from God. 

It remained that way until the 15th century (The Renaissance Period) when medical science reemerged, and dementia started being studied as a disease. But it wasn't until Dr. Alzheimer performed that autopsy on his patient's brain in 1906, did the true cause come to light. That discovery opened up an explosive amount of neurological research to study the causes for the plaques and tangles, and possible therapies for Alzheimer's disease.

Unfortunately more than a century later, it appears that the disease remains as mysterious as it was back in the early 1900s, and though we know how it progresses (through the development and spread of the amyloid plaques and tau tangles which in turn, break the neural network), the reason for the formation of the plaques and tangles in some brains, and more importantly, how to control or halt the progression of the disease, remains elusive. I'm hoping all the wonderful work done at my lab (and my tiny contribution) will help combat this terrible disease soon. I'm so proud to have been a part of this critical research and hope to return to it next summer.

Sources:

https://canohealth.com/news/blog/history-of-alzheimers-disease/

https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/alzheimers-disease-fact-sheet#:~:text=Alzheimer's%20disease%20is%20named%20after,of%20an%20unusual%20mental%20illness.