Biopsychology: Alzhiemer Disease Flashcards
Statement on ad and how it is increasing
Ad is growing in the population due to increases lifespan in age
-ad increases with age this if population increases so does ad
What are the 4 main facts about ad
- occurs in 5%of the population and the most common neurodegenerative disease
- 1:6 people over age 80
- memory failure
- poor navigational skills
What are the 2 main types of causes for ad?
- sporadic the most common and no obvious heritable gene
- genetics <10% of the population and genome wide association studies -familial
But also said that the environment can too influence vulnerable to genetics and developing ad
What is the first symptom of ad
failing memory which starts off in the hippocampus which makes sense because this area is involved in navigation and conscious memories
What are the clinical characteristics of ad
Memory
-failing memory for recent events and it is disproportionally worse than age related decline.
Other areas affected
- deficits in spatial navigation
- aggression and apathy
- depression
- change in personality
Fun facts about ad (6)
Fun facts about ad (6)
- difference In post mortems of the Brian with ad and pd and the areas that are affected reflect the different symptoms that experienced
- ad become more widespread in brain
- initially the brain doesn’t look any different to the normal brain but the progressively gets worse
- loss of temporal love hence match symptoms first experience like poor naviagation and memory
- ad is hard to diagnose at first because primary symptoms are poor memory this think may be related to age related decline instead
- forgetting gets worse, where individuals loose the ability to recognise family members
What isit not surprising that many symptoms are experienced in ad
Because degeneration occurs in temporal lobe and spreads to many other areas of the brain
Where does degeneration occur
Temporal lobe first
What happens during degeneration
Neuronal loss- caused by neurofibral tangles and amyloid plaques
Said neurons loss correlate with these plaques and tangles
Synapse loss-
Correlates with cognitive impairment
Affects cholinergic and glutaminergic synapse
What’s difference between pd and ad in degeneration
No dopamine neuronal loss hence why different symptoms are experienced
What are the 2 type of neurons and synapse affected
Cholinergic and glutaminergic
Why is arc important
Seen to be involved the capacity of memories
What happens if less glutamate and ache from synapse and neuronal loss
Less released into synapse less bind to PSn and it’s receptors so less capacity for memories and less likely to form recent memories via synaptic plasticity for ach and nmda receptors
Why are old memories lost
Degeneration kills neurons which hold the old memories via synaptic plasticity
What so important about app protein caused by certain genes that make us vulnerable to app
Genes contribute to vulnerability found via genome wide studies and said gene when mutated produces app protein that also mutated socauses amyloid plaques and same for tau and neurofibrial plaques