Tau Inhibitors for the Treatment of Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the commonest sort of dementia. Pathologically AD is characterized by amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles within the brain with associated loss of synapses and neurons leading to cognitive deficits and eventually dementia. Amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide and tau protein are the first components of the plaques and tangles respectively. Within the decades since Aβ and tau were identified the event of therapies for AD has primarily focused on Aβ but tau has received more attention in recent years partially due to the failure of varied Aβ-targeting treatments in clinical trials. During this article we review the present status of tau-targeting therapies for AD. Given that tau pathology correlates better with cognitive impairments than do Aβ lesions targeting of tau is expected to give more effective than Aβ clearance once the clinical symptoms are evident. With future improvements in diagnostics these two hallmarks of the disease might be targeted prophylactically.