Improving Research on Alzheimer’s Disease
November 10, 2021
The newest Alzheimer’s drug isn’t reaching many patients, in part because of lingering doubts about whether it actually slows memory loss. The drug removes a sticky protein from the brain, and conventional theory held that this would slow cognitive decline. But proof remains elusive. And Susan Fitzpatrick sees an even broader problem. In Issues, she argues that focusing on this single theory has led science into a cul-de-sac. Instead, she writes, researchers should “start to look at the complexity of the aging brain in its biosocial context, a context that demands that the brain be understood as an evolving, complex, adaptive network.”