Links between the brain and retina : the effects of cigarette smoking-induced age-related changes in Alzheimer's disease and macular degeneration

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by the progressive and selective loss of neurons and synapses. This debilitating disease was estimated to affect 33.9 million patients worldwide in 2011, a number that is expected to triple over the next 40 years (1). It has been shown that a combination of several processes, including extracellular deposition of amyloid-beta (Aß) plaques and the formation of intracellular neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) composed of hyper-phosphorylated tau proteins, in the brain are involved in the declining cognitive processes associated with AD (2). While dysfunction of the aforementioned biological processes starts from Braak stage I (preclinical AD), it is not until the majority of the neocortex is severely affected by neurofibrillary changes (Braak stages V-VI) that patients are ultimately diagnosed with dementia (3).