Alois Alzheimer's Essay

Every four seconds someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s currently the disease affects over fourty million people worldwide. Dr Alois Alzheimer was a German psychiatrist who first described the symptoms of Alzheimer’s in 1901 when he noticed a particular hospital patient had peculiar problems which were a difficulty in sleeping, disturbed memories, drastic changes to mood throughout the day and general confusion. When the patient passed away Dr Alzheimer was able to conduct an autopsy on the body and test his theory, which was the symptoms that had manifested where due to irregularities in the brains cerebral cortex. When he looked underneath the microscope what he found was visible differences in the brains tissue in the form of misfolded
Plaques arise when another protein in the fatty membranes surrounding nerve cells gets sliced up by a particular enzyme resulting in beta amyloid proteins which are sticky and have a tendency to clump together, that clumping is what forms plaques, these clumps block signalling, therefore communication between
Usually the Tau protein ensures that these tubes are straight allowing all necessary molecules to pass through freely. In a person who has Alzheimer’s this protein collapses into twisted strands or ‘tangles’ making the tubes disintegrate which in turn obstructs nutrients from reaching the nerve cells and in turn cell death happens. The destructive pairing of plaques and tangles starts in the region of the brain called the hippocampus which is responsible for forming memories and the ability to learn. That is why short term memory loss is usually the first symptom of Alzheimer’s. The proteins then progressively invade other areas of the brain creating unique changes that signal various stages of the disease. At the front of the brain the proteins destroy the ability to process logical thoughts, the proteins then shift to the region that controls emotion resulting in erratic mood changes. Once the top of the brain has been invaded paranoia and hallucinations begin. Once the proteins reach the brains rear the plaques and tangles work together to erase the minds deepest memories. Eventually the control centre of the brain which regulates heart rate and breathing are overpowered as well which in due course result in