Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related forms of dementia are increasingly affecting the aging population throughout the world, at an alarming rate. The World Alzheimer ' s Report indicates a prevalence of 46.8 million people affected by AD worldwide. As population ages, this number is projected to triple by 2050 unless effective interventions are developed and implemented. Urgent efforts are required for an early detection of this disease. The ultimate goal is the identification of viable targets for the development of molecular markers and validation of their use for early diagnosis of AD that may improve treatment and the disease outcome in patients. The diagnosis of AD has been difficult to resolve since approaches for early and accurate detection and follow-up of AD patients at the clinical level have been reported only recently. Some proposed AD biomarkers include the detection of patho-physiological processes in the brain in vivo with new imaging techniques and novel PET ligands, and the determination of pathogenic proteins in cerebrospinal fluid showing anomalous levels of hyperphosphorylated tau and low A beta peptide. These biomarkers have been increasingly accepted by AD diagnostic criteria and are important tools for the design of clinical trials, but difficulties in accessibility to costly and invasive procedures have not been completely addressed in clinical settings. New biomarkers are currently being developed to allow determinations of multiple pathological processes including neuroinflammation, synaptic dysfunction, metabolic impairment, protein aggregation and neurodegeneration. Highly specific and sensitive blood biomarkers, using less-invasive procedures to detect AD, are derived from the discoveries of peripheric tau oligomers and amyloid variants in human plasma and platelets. We have also developed a blood tau biomarker that correlates with a cognitive decline and also with neuroimaging determinations of brain atrophy.