Research Overview
Neurobiology of Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer's disease is the leading cause of dementia. There are now about 4.5 million Americans with the disease. Current treatment options provide only modest benefits, at best, for the increasing number of individuals afflicted by this disease. Alzheimer disease places a tremendous emotional and financial burden on our society, especially on families caring for those with the disease. Over the past decade our understanding of the underlying biological processes leading to the impairment in cognition with Alzheimer's disease are being unraveled. Our research work focuses on elucidating the molecular mechanism that initiates the Alzheimer's disease process in order to develop more effective treatment strategies for this ever-increasing disease of aging. Alzheimer's disease is characterized by the abnormal aggregation of highly aggregable beta-amyloid peptides in the brain of patients afflicted by the disease. Our research group discovered that the aberrant accumulation of beta-amyloid peptides begins within susceptible nerve cells in the brain as the earliest abnormally that occurs in Alzheimer's disease (Gouras et al., 2000; Takahashi et al., 2002; Gouras et al., 2005). Ongoing studies in our laboratory have centered on understanding the neurobiology of this early pathological process in order to devise novel therapies to halt the inexorable accumulation of beta-amyloid and subsequent degeneration of synapses and nerve cells that occur in Alzheimer's disease. For further information on the Laboratory of Alzheimer's Disease Neurobiology, please contact Dr. Gunnar Gouras: Telephone: (212) 746-6598 Email: gkgouras@med.cornell.edu
