New Treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease: Tau-Targeting Drugs and Therapies

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder, the most common form of dementia in older people, and is characterized by synaptic loss and brain atrophy. The first part to be damaged during the disease is the hippocampus, which is the memory center, and then the cerebral cortex, which controls logical and social behavior. Alzheimer's disease is pathologically characterized by the formation of tau neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid-β plaques in the brain. The formation of intracellular neurofibrillary tangles, the main cause of tauopathies, begins with the accumulation of hyperphosphorylated tau protein isoforms. These isoforms cause neuronal death and contribute to the development of complex neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other neurodegenerative diseases. Many of the treatments developed for Alzheimer's disease have focused on amyloid-β plaques, but since these treatments have failed to halt the progression of the disease, attention has been focused on tau pathologies. However, clinical trials of many drugs have been discontinued due to toxicity and failure to demonstrate the desired effect. Most of the tau-targeted agents currently being tested are immunotherapies. New research presents various potential approaches for preventing cellular toxicity resulting from tau aggregation. These include many methods, such as preventing toxic tau aggregation and post-translational modifications of tau protein, and developing tau-targeted immunogens. Since the accumulation of tau tangles is a major cause of Alzheimer's, it is significant to investigate therapies that restore normal tau mechanisms and prevent tau accumulation. In recent years, nanoparticle-based drug delivery technologies have offered promising opportunities for treating this disease.