© The Author (2006). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Editorial
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Arguably, no eponymous disorder exposes the vulnerability of what it is to be human more effectively than Alzheimer's disease. Whereas any vertebrate nervous system may suffer apoplexy, epilepsy or paralysis, the price paid for having a uniquely developed cerebrum is that it can go badly wrong. The threat of Alzheimer's disease casts its shadow over the worried well in an increasingly aging population. In recognition of the centenary—to the week—of the first description, this issue of Brain contains papers that relate exclusively to clinical and experimental aspects of Alzheimer's and related diseases, and to a few unrelated conditions that also affect cognitive function.
Alois Alzheimer (1864–1915) realized the expectations of Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926) who planned institutes of psychiatry in the belief that abnormalities of brain structure might explain mental diseases. With his appointment as resident at the Municipal Asylum for the Insane and Epileptic at Frankfurt-am-Main in December 1888, Alzheimer
Cambridge