Oxidative stress: The core pathogenesis and mechanism of Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

As the number of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) increases, it brings great suffering to their families and causes a heavy socioeconomic burden to society. A vast amount of funds and a mass of research have been devoted to elucidating the pathology of AD. However, the main pathogenesis is still elusive, and its mechanism is not completely clear. Research on the mechanisms of AD mainly focuses on the amyloid cascade, tau protein, neuroinflammation, metal ions, and oxidative stress hypotheses. Oxidative stress is as a bridge that connects the different hypotheses and mechanisms of AD. It is a process that causes neuronal damage and occurs in various pathways. Oxidative stress plays a critical role in AD and can even be considered a crucial central factor in the pathogenesis of AD. Previous reviews have also summarized the role of oxidative stress in AD, but these mainly review a specific signaling pathway. Taking oxidative stress as the central point, this review comprehensively expands on the roles of oxidative stress that are involved in the pathogenesis of AD. The vivid and easy-to-understand figures systematically clarify the connected roles of oxidative stress in AD and allow readers to further understand oxidative stress and AD.