The changes in the brain characterising Alzheimer's disease begin long before people develop clinical symptoms such as memory loss, according to research published in the current issue of Annals of Neurology.
"This means that to develop truly effective therapies, we must learn how to stop the brain lesions before they accumulate to the point where they interfere with mental function," according to co-author Dr John C. Morris, Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in Missouri.