The writer is a science commentator
For any crime, there is always an early suspect. For Alois Alzheimer, a Bavarian pathologist who sought to understand the human brain, one paranoid patient’s early memory loss was plainly caused by the peculiar protein clumps found in her brain after death.
Alzheimer first revealed evidence of this in 1906. Ever since, scientists have focused heavily on the abnormal build-ups of two particular proteins — amyloid-beta, which forms sticky plaques around brain cells, and tau, which forms tangles within some brain cells — as the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. The disease accounts for most cases of dementia, an umbrella term for diseases that diminish memory, thinking and everyday functioning.
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