Alzheimer's Disease Center

Alzheimer's Disease Center

Information on Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive disease of the brain that is characterized by impairment of memory and a disturbance in at least one other thinking function (for example, language or perception of reality). Many scientists believe that AD results from an increase in the production or accumulation of a specific protein (beta-amyloid protein) that leads to nerve cell death. Loss of nerve cells in strategic brain areas, in turn, causes deficits in the neurotransmitters, which are the brain's chemical messengers. Read More About Alzheimer's Disease »

The Life Anoxic

Lake Victoria is Africa's single most important source of inland fishery production, but radical changes to its ecology have rendered much of the deep water anoxic (no oxygen) or hypoxic (low in oxygen) and dramatically altered the food web. Other, more recent changes in the lake, however, are giving respiratory ecologist Lauren Chapman renewed hope that fisheries sustainability and biodiversity conservation can be reconciled.