Nikolai Slavov, associate professor at the Department of Bioengineering at Northeastern University in Boston (USA), explained that Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease, while dementia is a term that describes a group of symptoms caused by various causes. In this respect reports Northeastern University.
Dementia is a collective name that characterizes the presence of disorders of nervous activity in a person, accompanied by the loss of acquired knowledge and skills and a decrease in the ability to learn. This concept is broader than Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease is thought to be caused by the buildup of toxic beta-amyloid proteins in the brain, which can form plaques that interfere with the normal functioning of neurons. This situation leads to a decrease in cognitive abilities, that is, dementia. However, dementia is a result of disorders specific to Alzheimer’s disease and is not synonymous with this concept.
Memory loss, the loss of the ability to process information, perceive information, and navigate in space, can also result from other diseases, such as Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases. These are not accompanied by the accumulation of beta-amyloid proteins in the brain, but are neurodegenerative. Their common feature is the progressive loss of neuronal structure or function.
Slavov concluded that neurodegenerative diseases lead to the development of dementia, but that this may not be the result of Alzheimer’s disease alone.
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