Dementia- What is it? Dementia is a syndrome, not a disease, unlike Alzheimer’s. It can occur when certain brain cells are damaged by various infections, diseases, head injuries or imbalances. This damage interferes with the ability of brain cells to communicate with each other. When brain cells are unable to communicate normally, thinking, behavior and feelings can be affected.
For those with Down syndrome, a gene contained in the extra chromosome increase the risk. 3. In the case of women, the risk increases mostly due to living longer. B. According to the same Mayo Clinic article, some evidence indicates that other health factors such as type 2 diabetes, smoking, heart disease, and obesity might also put you at a higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
Vascular Dementia can occur after a person has a stroke due to major blood vessels being blocked. iii. It also causes your thinking ability to decline by not allowing vital oxygen and nutrients to your brain cells. iv. In an article by Alzheimer’s Association it mentions that many experts who study this type like to call it “Vascular Cognitive Impairment” because it better explains the idea that your vascular thinking skills can change and it can either be small or serve.
Abstract Alzheimer's disease involves cognitive disorders and problems with abstract reasoning in older people mostly. Alzheimer's disease has many behavioural and emotional characteristics which affects the victims of Alzheimer, as well as their families and those who care for them. The exact cause of Alzheimer is still not clear to us, not even after all these years of research. Till now, all we know is that a small proportion of Alzheimer’s disease is inherited, many scientist believe that there is some connections between a person’s environment and genetic make-up. According to statistics, more than 44 million people in the world have Alzheimer disease.
Researchers believe that multiple blows to the head may dislodge the tau protein from the cell structure and cause it to form in clumps inside nerve cells. This may damage or ultimately kill nerve cells, and spread as the disease progresses; one of the advanced stages is that brain shrinkage may occur. Researchers are working to refine brain scan techniques to identify Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy tau deposits in living brains. They are also looking for clues in people’s blood or cerebrospinal fluid that would allow them diagnose the disease before death. A large-scale study found that concussions in adolescents can increase the risk of developing multiple sclerosis later on in life.
Scientists believe that there is no single clear cause of Alzheimer 's disease. They believe for most people, Alzheimer 's disease is caused by a mixture of genetic, lifestyle and environmental aspects that affect the brain over time. The risk of having Alzheimer 's seems to be somewhat higher if a first degree relative has the disease. Scientists have identified mutations in three genes that almost guarantee an individual who inherits them will have Alzheimer 's. But these mutations account for not more than 5 percent of Alzheimer 's disease.
In various mental illnesses, volumetric changes, reduction in cortical volume and ventricular atrophy can be seen in the brain and this may well contribute to the cause of the problem. Neurobiology believes that the human is an organism with natural functions designed by nature and mental illness is a
A lot of scholars agree that this disease is caused by the proliferation of HIV-1 (McGuire, 2003). As highlighted by McGuire (2003), the replication of this viral strain in brain macrophages leads to a high viral burden within the brain. These viruses cause ADC. This hypothesis has been substantiated by studies that have positively correlated HIV encephalopathy with ADC (John Hopkins University, 2018). Some scholars, however, argue that ADC is caused by a macrophage-initiated cascade of events that leads to the degeneration and dysfunction of the brain (McGuire, 2003).
Alzheimer’s disease is caused by the low levels of concentration of neurotransmitter acetylcholine which aids in neurotransmission as a chemical messenger due to the two hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease which are the accumulation of beta amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. There is yet for a cure to be found for Alzheimer’s disease however the use of the drug Rivastigmine has been verified to help relieve the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease by inhibiting the enzyme acetylcholinesterase so that the neurotransmitter acetylcholine is not
They used engram cells in the hippocampal dentate gyrus. This finding implies that the cause of Alzheimer's is memory retrieval problems, rather than a problem with the engram cells. These findings demonstrate that not only can optogenetics potentially reverse the effects of Alzheimer's, but that it can also help researchers learn more about the disease. Scientists have hitherto found that reduced dendritic spine density in neurons is linked to memory loss in Alzheimer’s Disease. Previous studies have found that long-term potentiation, which is the strengthening of synapses by repeated action (ncbi), can be induced with optogenetic methods.