title: Tau aggregation in the hippocampal formation: an ageing or a pathological process?
abstract: Tauopathy is a concept to describe different genetic or metabolic dysfunctions of tau proteins that generate most of the known dementing disorders. Tauopathy is a degenerating process that also affects the entorhinal formation, and then the hippocampal formation in ageing. In Alzheimer's disease (AD), a disease due to APP dysfunction, a similar tauopathy process in observed in neocortical areas, well correlated to cognitive impairment. One important gap of knowledge is the relationship between tauopathy in the hippocampal formation, ageing, AD, and cognitive impairment. Here we show that the multidisciplinary analysis of numerous brains from non-demented and demented patients suggests the following observations: tauopathy of the hippocampal formation in humans is age-related but not an age-dependent process, also independent of AD, but amplified by APP dysfunctions. Tauopathy in the entorhinal and hippocampal formation could be another type of pathological dysfunction of tau proteins, and a therapeutic target to delay AD. Relevant animal models are desperately needed to address this issue.
authors.affiliation: Unité Inserm 422, 1, Place de Verdun, 59045 Lille cedex, France. delacourte@lille.inserm.fr
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Delacourte
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sergeant
authors.forename: Annick
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wattez
authors.forename: Claude-Alain
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Maurage
authors.forename: Florence
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lebert
authors.forename: Florence
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pasquier
authors.forename: Jean-Philippe
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: David
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000209:etiology* / Q000378:metabolism; D000682:Amyloid / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000254:growth & development; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D009410:Nerve Degeneration / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism; D024801:Tauopathies / Q000209:etiology* / Q000378:metabolism; D016875:tau Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D000682:Amyloid; D016875:tau Proteins