Advances in Alzheimer’s disease (AAD): Standing firm at its first anniversary

doi:10.4236/aad.2013.22006

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Vol.2, No.2, 49-50 (2013) Advances in Alzheimer ’s Disease

http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aad.2013.22006

Editorial

Advances in Alzheimer’s disease (AAD): Standing

firm at its first anniversary

Xiao-Xin Yan

Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Central South University Xiangya School of Medicine, Changsha, China;

Corresponding Author: [email protected]

Received 22 April 2013; revised 24 May 2013; accepted 2 June 2013

permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Advances in Alzheimer’s Disease (AAD) is an inter-

national journal launched last year, dedicated to promote

basic, translational and clinical research on Alzheimer’s

Disease (AD) and brain aging

(http://www.scirp.org/journal/aad/). On its first anniver-

sary, the journal has made substantial achievements and

shows a great promise for its future. AAD published the

first issue on June 26 last year, followed by the second

and third issues in September and December. The first

issue of this year was published in March as scheduled.

The current issue publishes 3 origin al and review articles.

The published papers were contributed by investigators

over the world, mostly outside China, covering broad

and diverse topics on AD, from mechanistic study to

disease diagnosis, care and treatment. These papers have

attracted considerable attention in the field, with total

views near 40 thousand and full article downloads over 6

thousand to date.

AD is the most common type of dementia in the eld-

erly. It attacks individuals aged over 65 in most cases, at

a prevalence around 5%, which doubles every decade as

the age goes further up. In 2013, an estimated 5 million

Americans aged 65 and older have AD. The advances in

modern medicine and the improvement in social and envi

ronmental conditions will further increase human life-

expectancy in the coming years, so do for the number of

people who will develop this neurodegenerative disease.

It is projected that 14 million Americans will live with

AD by 2050

(http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_facts_and_figur

es.asp?type=alzchptfooter) [1,2]. The situation in China

is perhaps even worse and more alarming because of its

population in the world, which is rapidly aging. While

there is little official epidemiological record, China may

already have more than 6 - 8 million AD patients today.

What’s more, the overall life-expectancy for Chinese is

now about 7 6 y ears

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ countries_by_life_

expectancy), but it will catch up the current mid-80s re-

cords in most western/developed countries within 10

years or so. Together with other problems and d ifficulties

(e.g., the one-child policy), China may soon face one of

the greatest socioeconomic and healthcare challenges in

her journey to modernization

(http://charls.ccer.edu.cn).

AD is pathologically characterized by amyloid plaques,

neurofibrillary tangles, neuritic pathology, gliosis, and

neuronal and synaptic loss in vulnerable brain regions

especially in the limbic and neocortical areas [3-5]. Ag-

ing is the greatest risk factor, while vascular and meta-

bolic deficits, trauma, inflammation, environmental in-

sults, genetic predisposition, and physiological “wasting”

of cognitive and physical reserve are also potential etio-

logical factors. Many theories have been proposed for the

pathogenesis of this disease. Among all, the amyloid

hypothesis emphasizes accumulation of β-amyloid pep-

tides (Aβ) being the leading pathogenic factor. The mi-

tochondria/metabolic stress cascade hypothesis considers

age-inherent metabolic failure or oxidative damages to

mitochondrial DNA, RNA, lipid and protein as the pri-

mary pathogenic mechanism. The cognitive reserve hy-

pothesis suggests that reduced brain use plays an impor-

tant role in dementia and AD development. The calcium

hypothesis posits Ca2+ homeostatic deregulation contrib-

uting to neuronal death and functional decline in brain

aging and AD [5-9]. Evidence exists in supporting each

of these hypotheses, reflecting the nature of complexity

and multi-dimensional abnormalities of this disease. At

present, efforts are particularly needed to identify the

fundamental molecular/cellular mechanism that may

unify the risk factors, pathological manifestations and

functional loss in this disease [8 ,9]. Because th ere are no

X.-X. Yan / Advances in Alzheimer’s Disease 2 (2013) 49-50

available treatments, joint efforts at governmental, aca-

demic, clinical and industrial levels are urgently needed

to fight against AD across the globe [10].

AAD is one of the journals spo nsored by the Scien tific

Research Publishing group headquartered in Wuhan,

China. It is the first, and in fact, currently the only spe-

cialty journal in the AD field in China. It was launched

under the philosophy of free share and use of scientific

information. This open-access online journal has a wor-

ld-wide representative panel of editorial board members,

who, together with external review er s, carry ou t v igoro us

and fair evaluation on each submitted manuscript. AAD

charges a very affordable publication fee for accepted

papers, and manuscripts in all aspects of AD are consid-

ered for publication. This journ al is currently indexed by

a number of world-class databases/searching engines

including CrossRef and Google Scholar

(http://www.scirp.org/journal/aad/). Besides its internet

accessibility, AAD is now broadly distributed via the

library system among universities in mainland China as

well as many institutions over the wo rld.

The editorial team and publisher are greatly encour-

aged by the achievements through the first year of opera-

tion, and we expect a healthy growth of this journal in

the future. As a part of global effort in combating neu-

rodegenerative diseases and improving human life in the

world, AAD seeks to serve a unique and important in-

ternational platform for scientific communication in AD

research, prevention and therapy.

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