Abstract
The task of developing a unifying theory of Alzheimer's disease faces several impediments. The most difficult include: the impact of scientific orthodoxy on the acceptance of new ideas; the uncertain relationship between aging and disease(s); the long time course of the degenerative process; the heterogeneity in the genotype and phenotype of the disease; the complex interactions among genetic and other risk factors (many of which are not yet known); the poorly understood nonlinear relationships between the neurobiological and the clinical phenotypes of the disease - namely, viewing clinical symptoms as emergent behavior(s) of a complex system; and the paucity of appropriate models or modeling systems for human disease(s) such as Alzheimer's.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 184-193 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences |
Volume | 924 |
State | Published - 2000 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Aging
- Alzheimer's disease
- Dementia
- Emergent behavior(s)
- Modeling systems
- Models
- Neurodegeneration
- Theory
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology