Clinic for Neurology and Neurophysiology

Aggregation and accumulation of proteins in the brain are common features of diverse age-related neurodegenerative diseases. Each of these neurodegenerative diseases is associated with abnormalities in the folding of a different protein leading to protein aggregation and ultimately to neuronal death. Alzheimers Disease (AD) is one of these protein conformational diseases which is characterized by the extracellular accumulation of amyloid-? peptide and neuroanatomical changes. Kinetic studies have shown that A? protein aggregation occur via a nucleation mechanism, which resembles a crystallization process (Figure 1). However, little is known about how protein aggregation and deposition is initiated in vivo.