Chapter 32.1 - Translational Correlation: Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

In order to understand higher cortical functions of the human brain, behavioral neurologists and cognitive neuroscientists employ several approaches. The animal models only provide a reductive method of analyzing cortical functions at their simplistic levels. Historically, observations on patients with specific brain lesions show the evidence that the human intellect attributes, including attention, memory, language, motor action, and higher cortical perceptions are localized in cerebral cortices. The modern neuroimaging tools, such as functional MRI, enable researchers to formulate plausible cognitive processes of individual higher cortical functions. Often a brain disease can provide a unique window that fascinates clinicians as well as researchers in their views of how higher cortical functions interact with the environment for survival. More than 100years ago, Dr. Alois Alzheimer described not only a vivid account of a patient with the disease of the cerebral cortex that later bears his name (Alzheimer's disease), but also linked progressively failing higher cortical functions with specific pathological signatures of cerebral cortices. Since mid-1970s, research on Alzheimer's disease has stimulated enthusiasm for exploration into the mechanism of higher cortical functions. In this chapter, major discoveries about Alzheimer's disease are highlighted. Most importantly, the fact that Alzheimer's disease can affect higher cortical functions is discussed.