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Commentary on “Diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: Two decades of progress.” The NIA's Alzheimer Disease Centers
Author(s) -
Growdon John H.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2005.09.012
Subject(s) - citation , disease , neurology , section (typography) , library science , medicine , gerontology , psychology , psychiatry , computer science , pathology , operating system
e c m c f m n F e e p t l o v d t t i c Among the many milestones in AD research described in r. Khachaturian’s Perspective, the Alzheimer’s Disease enter program (ADC) must rank near the top. Establishing he Centers as the nidus to conduct focused research on AD as catalyzed by 3 independent but reinforcing events: 1. Public realization that AD was a widespread and malignant disease that posed a major public health problem of great magnitude; 2. US Congressional action to set aside money earmarked for AD research in response to public concern and pressure from foundations such as the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association (now, the Alzheimer’s Association); 3. Scientific breakthroughs that documented pathologic and biochemical abnormalities in AD and raised optimism over prospects for a cure. These discoveries justified the Congressional expenditures and gave promise that research on neurofibrillary tangles and degenerating cholinergic neurons would pay therapeutic dividends. The Centers came to life in 1984, when Margaret Heckler, he US Secretary for Health and Human Services, came to the arvard Medical School along with Dr. Khachaturian to anounce that the National Institute on Aging (NIA) would dminister a grant of $3.5 million to fund 5 Alzheimer’s isease Research Centers (Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Mt. Sinai, SC, and UC San Diego). Thus was born one of the most roductive research programs at the National Institutes of ealth (NIH). Today, 22 years later, there are 32 ADCs in the IA portfolio with an annual budget of more than $50 million. The initial goal of the Center program is still relevant today: o stimulate new basic and clinical research into the cause(s) nd mechanisms of dementia that will lead to cure and preention of AD and related dementias. To achieve this goal, enters were expected to attract skilled neuroscience investiators to the study of dementia and to provide the infrastructure or successful coordinated basic and clinical science research. or this reason, centers established units with clinical expertise o diagnose and follow patients with dementia as well as europathologic units with expertise to uncover the pathologic orrelates of dementia and to provide banked brain tissue for esearch study. Although each center proposed and pursued it a