Aducanumab - a potential pharmacological therapeutic treatments for Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

The first cause of dementia symptoms in the elderly worldwide is Alzheimer's disease (AD), which lead to a continuous and gradual memory loss that causes significant distress towards people. Known from World Alzheimer’s Report, dementia is now the top 7 mortality cause globally. There are several hypothesis of AD pathogenesis. Among them, beta-amyloid cascade hypothesis and hyperphosphorylation of tau protein are two of the most mainstream opinions. However, beta-amyloid cascade hypothesis is being questioned. In order to deal with this disease, both non-pharmacological (cognitive improvement) and pharmacological therapeutics (rivastigmine) can relieve symptoms of AD, such as dementia to some extent, but they cannot directly treat AD. Under this situation, for the purpose of finding drugs that can cure AD, thousands of drugs clinical trials are under progress. Although most of the ongoing drugs passed through the phase 2 clinical trial successfully, only Aducanumab passed though the phase 3, becoming the first new drug for AD approved by FDA. Nonetheless, Aducanumab is controversial in the scientific community. This paper briefly introduces the mechanism of action and research progress of aducanumab.