Suspected non-Alzheimer disease pathophysiology (SNAP)

Miho Ota¹⁾, Go Endo²⁾, Masashi Tamura³⁾, Tetsuaki Arai¹⁾

¹⁾Department of Psychiatry, Division of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba
²⁾Kashima Hospital
³⁾Ibaraki Prefectural Medical Center of Psychiatry

The neuropathological diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) requires the presence of both neurofibrillary tangles and senile plaques. New criteria for Alzheimer's disease, the National Institute on Aging-Alzheimer's Association (NIA-AA) criteria rely on biomarkers to classify individuals with preclinical AD as either amyloid-β (Aβ)-positive or Aβ negative, and as neurodegeneration-positive or neurodegeneration-negative. In this way, individuals with imaging/biomarker evidence of AD-like neurodegeneration without Aβ have been labeled “suspected non-Alzheimer's pathophysiology (SNAP). However, we did not know about SNAP as well. In this paper, we introduce the neuropathology and clinical characteristics of SNAP.

Address correspondence to Dr. Miho Ota, Department of Psychiatry, Division of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba (1-1-1, Tennoudai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8575, Japan)