Review Volume 13, Issue 17 pp 21791—21806
Involvement of cerebrovascular abnormalities in the pathogenesis and progression of Alzheimer’s disease: an adrenergic approach
- 1 Liaoning Provincial Center for Clinical Research on Neurological Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116021, China
- 2 Liaoning Provincial Key Laboratory for Research on the Pathogenic Mechanisms of Neurological Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116021, China
- 3 Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China
- 4 Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325000, China
- 5 Key Laboratory of Endemic and Ethnic Diseases, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang 550004, China
Received: May 24, 2021 Accepted: August 17, 2021 Published: September 3, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.203482How to Cite
Copyright: © 2021 Li et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Alzheimer’s disease (AD), as the most common neurodegenerative disease in elder population, is pathologically characterized by β-amyloid (Aβ) plaques, neurofibrillary tangles composed of highly-phosphorylated tau protein and consequently progressive neurodegeneration. However, both Aβ and tau fails to cover the whole pathological process of AD, and most of the Aβ- or tau-based therapeutic strategies are all failed. Increasing lines of evidence from both clinical and preclinical studies have indicated that age-related cerebrovascular dysfunctions, including the changes in cerebrovascular microstructure, blood-brain barrier integrity, cerebrovascular reactivity and cerebral blood flow, accompany or even precede the development of AD-like pathologies. These findings may raise the possibility that cerebrovascular changes are likely pathogenic contributors to the onset and progression of AD. In this review, we provide an appraisal of the cerebrovascular alterations in AD and the relationship to cognitive impairment and AD pathologies. Moreover, the adrenergic mechanisms leading to cerebrovascular and AD pathologies were further discussed. The contributions of early cerebrovascular factors, especially through adrenergic mechanisms, should be considered and treasured in the diagnostic, preventative, and therapeutic approaches to address AD.