Updates in Solving the Mystery of Alzheimer's Disease Pathology

In a healthy brain, there are nerve cells or neurons (triangle figures) and synapses (the branches coming out of the nerve cells) as depicted in Figure 1. In Alzheimer’s disease (AD), there are fewer nerve cells and synapses. Plaques are abnormal clusters of beta amyloid protein fragments that build up between nerve cells depicted as orange balls in Figure 1. Dead and dying nerve cells (black triangle figures) contain tangles, which are made up of twisted strands of a protein called Tau.