On the issue of transmissibility of Alzheimer disease

Abstract

Results from recent experiments with rodents imply that Alzheimer disease might be inducible by seeding Aβ peptides into recipient animals. In respect to this new experimental data, public health aspects as well as epidemiological data have to be reevaluated. In this article, the available experimental and epidemiological data are reviewed.

Keywords: :

• Alzheimer
• transmissibility
• prion
• dementia
• epidemiology

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung grant within the German Network for Degenerative Dementia (KNDD-2, 2012-2015, determinants for disease progression in AD, grant no. 01GI1010C), as well as JPND, EU-FP7 PRIORITY.

Authors’ contributions: C.S. was responsible for the initiation of the project, general conception and the composition of the final manuscript. A.K. provided parts of the section on epidemiology. C.K. provided parts of the section on experimental clues regarding AD transmissibility/inducibility. I.Z. was responsible for the initiation of the project, the critical review for contentual errors and writing parts of the conclusion. All authors contributed to the revision of the manuscript. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.