Propagation of cerebral β-amyloidosis

Tsuyoshi Hamaguchi, Masahito Yamada

Department of Neurology and Neurobiology of Aging, Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medical Science

It is widely known that prion diseases are transmitted from animals to humans, or from humans to humans, and more than 600 cases of acquired Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) (variant CJD and iatrogenic CJD) have been reported worldwide. Recently, the number of the reports that point out a possibility of propagation of cerebral β-amyloidosis, which is one of core pathological features of Alzheimer's disease (AD), between individuals in animal experiments is increasing. Although there have been no reports on propagation of AD between individuals in humans because of medical procedure or food consumption, the results of animal experiments might show that we need further study on propagation of AD. In this article, we review the reports on propagation of β-cerebral amyloidosis in animal study and on case-control studies between medical procedures and AD onset.

Address correspondence to Dr. Tsuyoshi Hamaguchi, Department of Neurology and Neurobiology of Aging, Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medical Science (13-1 Takara-machi, Kanazawa 920-8640, Japan)