Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease associated with the development of dementia. It has been established that the pathological hallmarks of neurofibrillary tau protein tangles and senile β-amyloid protein plaques lead to degeneration of neurons via inflammatory pathways. The progressive death of neurons, primarily cholinergic, results in a gradual and fatal decline of cognitive abilities and memory. By targeting these pathological hallmarks and their associated pathways, AD drug therapy can potentially attenuate the disease state. In this review article, we focus on newly proposed and experimental AD drug treatment. We discuss three characteristic areas of AD treatment: prevention of neurotoxic β-amyloid protein plaque formation, stability of neuronal tau proteins, and increase in neuronal growth and function. The primary drug therapy methods and patents discussed include the use of neurotrophic factors and targeting of the amyloid precursor protein cleavage pathway as prevention of β-amyloid formation and tau aggregation.
