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The critical need for defining preclinical biomarkers in Alzheimer's disease
Author(s) -
Fiandaca Massimo S.,
Mapstone Mark E.,
Cheema Amrita K.,
Federoff Howard J.
Publication year - 2014
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.2014.04.015
Subject(s) - disease , medicine , intervention (counseling) , therapeutic window , population , intensive care medicine , alzheimer's disease , neuroscience , psychology , psychiatry , pathology , pharmacology , environmental health
The increasing number of afflicted individuals with late‐onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) poses significant emotional and financial burden on the world's population. Therapeutics designed to treat symptoms or alter the disease course have failed to make an impact, despite substantial investments by governments, pharmaceutical industry, and private donors. These failures in treatment efficacy have led many to believe that symptomatic disease, including both mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD, may be refractory to therapeutic intervention. The recent focus on biomarkers for defining the preclinical state of MCI/AD is in the hope of defining a therapeutic window in which the neural substrate remains responsive to treatment. The ability of biomarkers to adequately define the at‐risk state may ultimately allow novel or repurposed therapeutic agents to finally achieve the disease‐modifying status for AD. In this review, we examine current preclinical AD biomarkers and suggest how to generalize their use going forward.