Preface

Human neurodegenerative disorders produce devastating symptoms that enormously affect both patients and their relatives. The disease pathologies share specific features, such as late onset, accumulation of misfolded proteins that form aggregates in the brain and progressive degeneration of specific neuronal populations. Patients may suffer from behavioral and physical disorders, as well as severe cognitive impairments. The incidence of neurodegenerative diseases has dramatically increased with the aging of the population and although neurodegenerative diseases represent a major threat for public health, few effective treatments are currently available. In order to discover drugs to prevent and treat neurodegenerative diseases, it is imperative to decipher the genetic and molecular mechanisms that underlie the onset and development of these disorders. Despite many years of research, scientists have not yet succeeded in understanding the precise mechanisms that lead to neurodegeneration. A number of important questions remain to be answered: how do disease-associated proteins cause neuronal dysfunction and death; what underlies cell type-specific degeneration; are these diseases age-dependent; are these gender-specific; are there common pathogenic mechanisms that underlie different neurodegenerative disorders; and how can these diseases be prevented and treated? In this book we will review the most recent findings on scientific research that explored mechanisms and pathways for the diseases. We further explore how the current knowledge is being applied to improve the life of neurodegenerative disease patients.