Neurodevelopmental Clues to Neurodegeneration

Abstract

Neurodegenerative disorders are characterized by neuronal loss, usually in late life. But recently, abnormalities of proteins implicated in neurodegenerative disorders have been identified in disorders of childhood, raising the possibility that clues to susceptibility to and prevention of neurodegenerative disorders may be identifiable before symptoms of disease arise. This review leverages these new and evolving findings to test our hypothesis, first proposed in 2010, that proteins implicated in neurodegenerative disorders play important roles in brain development by examining evidence in the peer-reviewed literature published in the past five years for the relevance of these proteins in normal and disease-associated brain development.

Keywords: Biomarkers; Disease mechanisms; Genetic disorders; Proteins.

FIGURE.

Processing of amyloid precursor protein under normal circumstances and in Alzheimer disease. APP, amyloid precursor protein; sAPPα,β, soluble amyloid precursor protein α,β; C83 & C99, C-terminal APP fragments; AICD, amyloid intracellular domain. The color version of this figure is available in the online edition.