During most of the 20th century, neurodegenerative diseases remained among the most enigmatic disorders of medicine. The scientific study of these conditions was descriptive in nature, detailing the clinical and neuropathological phenotypes associated with various diseases, but etiologies and pathogenic mechanisms remained obscure. Beginning in the 1970s, advances in two principal areas biochemical pathology and molecular genetics combined to yield powerful clues to the molecular underpinnings of several previously "idiopathic" brain disorders. Among the classical neurodegenerative...

Promising effects in mice of immunization by ss-amyloid stimulated substantial research efforts and high hopes. In retrospect, this study appears simultaneously logical, consistent as it is with the amyloid theory central today in the field of Alzheimer's disease studies, and paradoxical, because it involved using the toxic substance itself for a treatment benefit. The research thus begun opens up multiple perspectives for experimentation and for treatment. Clinical trials began, but had to be stopped in January 2002 because of serious side effects. The editors' objective for this book is...