• Special Issue Topic

    Alzheimer’s Disease

    Submission Deadline: December 31, 2024

    Guest Editor

    Ryszard Pluta E-Mail

    Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Lublin, Poland


    About the Special Issue

    Alzheimer's disease is an age-related neurodegenerative disease that affects tens of millions of people worldwide, as well as their caregivers. A neurodegenerative disease, which means it progresses over time. It is assumed that Alzheimer's disease begins 20 years or more before the onset of symptoms, and changes in the brain are imperceptible to the affected person. It is only after years of brain changes that patients notice symptoms such as memory loss and language problems. The symptoms appear because the neurons in brain structures involved in thinking, learning and memory have disappeared. As the disease progresses, neurons in other brain structures also die. Ultimately, this also applies to neurons in the parts of the brain that enable basic bodily functions such as swallowing and walking. Plaques composed of beta-amyloid peptides and neurofibrillary tangles of tau protein are hallmarks of the Alzheimer's disease brain. However, despite more than a century of research, the cause of Alzheimer's disease remains unresolved and there is no causal treatment. Despite years of research, the role of amyloid and tau protein is disputed as the cause of the disease, and other causes of Alzheimer's disease, including brain ischemia, are now being considered. In such a situation, patients are ultimately bedridden and require round-the-clock care. Alzheimer's disease is fatal in the long run. With the demonstration that Alzheimer's disease can begin 20 years or more before the onset of symptoms, a significant time window has opened up for intervention in disease progression. Thus, in the future, the identification of new biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease will enable it early detection and may accelerate the development of new causative therapies. I think that as a result of the involvement of scientists in this special issue, new models and different causes/hypotheses of the disease will be introduced and discussed. This will allow us to better understand in the future which therapies may be most effective at specific points on the Alzheimer's disease continuum. I hope that each article on this topic will both inform and generate further interest in the cause(s) that will explain the development of Alzheimer's disease.

    Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, etiology, amyloid, tau protein, therapy, genomic, proteomic, experimental models, clinical trials

    Call for Papers

    Published Articles

    Open Access
    Review
    Current therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and clinical trials
    Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a major type of dementia and neurodegenerative disease, characterized by memory loss and cognitive decline. Over decades, significant efforts have been dedicated to fin [...] Read more.
    Danqing Xiao, Chen Zhang
    Published: June 27, 2024 Explor Neurosci. 2024;3:255–271
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/en.2024.00048
    View:2300
    Download:88
    Open Access
    Review
    Connecting the ends: signaling via receptor tyrosine kinases and cytoskeletal degradation in neurodegeneration
    Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) are known to perform versatile roles in disease landscapes, which determine the fate of the cell. Although much has been discussed from the perspective of proliferat [...] Read more.
    Priyanka Sengupta ... Debashis Mukhopadhyay
    Published: February 20, 2024 Explor Neurosci. 2024;3:1–26
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/en.2024.00033
    View:1838
    Download:44
    Open Access
    Original Article
    Estimation of the allelic status of apolipoprotein E4 isoforms with fully automated LUMIPULSE® assays
    Aim: Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) isoforms, especially the ApoE4 isoform, are genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Moreover, the APOE ε4 haplotype has a dose-dependent association wit [...] Read more.
    Tatsushi Yuri ... Hisashi Nojima
    Published: October 16, 2023 Explor Neurosci. 2023;2:238–244
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/en.2023.00024
    View:1703
    Download:48
    Times Cited: 0
    Open Access
    Review
    Sleep disorders contribute to the development of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease
    Life is the highest form of adaptation to the environment which is based on energy metabolism. To maintain life, the neuromuscular system must constantly interact with the environment. The striatal  [...] Read more.
    Janusz Wiesław Błaszczyk
    Published: October 08, 2023 Explor Neurosci. 2023;2:212–223
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/en.2023.00022
    View:1378
    Download:32
    Times Cited: 0