dementia-2018-posters-abstracts

Page 34

allied

academies

August 16-17, 2018 | Copenhagen, Denmark

Dementia and Alzheimer ’s Disease

World congress on

Journal of Neurology and Neurorehabilitation Research | Volume: 3

Alzheimer disease research in the 21st century: the shift towards a new paradigm

Francesca Pistollato

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, USA

nimal models of Alzheimer disease (AD) have been

extensively utilized in the last few decades in an

effort to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms

of this disease and to test novel therapeutic approaches.

However, research success has not effectively translated into

therapeutic success for human patients. We investigated

the reasons for this translational discrepancy. Our analysis

revealed that translational failure is due – at least in part

– to the overuse of animal models that cannot accurately

recapitulate human AD etiopathogenesis or drug responses

and the inadequate use of human-based investigational

methods. Here we present the challenges and opportunities

in AD research and propose how we can mitigate this

translational barrier by employing human-based methods

to elucidate disease processes occurring at multiple levels

of complexity (from gene expression to protein, cellular,

tissue/organ to individual and population level). Novel

human-based cellular and computational models are

already being applied in toxicology and regulatory testing,

and the adoption and the widespread implementation

of such tools in AD research will undoubtedly facilitate

human-relevant data acquisition. Additionally, clinical

studies focused on nutritional and lifestyle intervention

strategies to reduce and/or prevent early symptoms of AD

represent another relevant and important way to elucidate

AD pathogenesis and treatment options in a human-based

setting. Taken together, it is clear that a paradigm shift

towards human-based research is the best way to tackle

the ever-increasing prevalence of AD in the 21st century.