One sad discovery
14 June 1864 19 December 1915 Alois Alzheimer 1864 in Markbreit was born on June 14, a small town in southern Germany. During my educational shows excellent qualities and especially proponesione for Science: studying medicine first at the University of Aschaffenburg, then even those in Berlin, Tübingen and Wurzburg. He graduated in 1887, only 23 years old. He was appointed clinical assistant at the Frankfurt Asylum Irrenanstalt status, where he begins to care and more research on the human brain cortex. At the beginning of the century the name of Alois Alzheimer assumes notoriety for his publications on cerebral arteriosclerosis. His early career as a Professor of psychology in Germany led him to work with the neurologist Franz Nissl. Together they publish "Histologic and Histopathologic Studies of the Cerebral Cortex", a work in six volumes. Looking for a place to combine research and clinical practice, Alzheimer's becomes a research assistant to Emil Kraepelin at the medical school of Monaco: here organizes and directs a new laboratory for brain research. Over time Alzheimer publishes many articles on conditions and diseases of the brain, but is of 1906 the publication that will make him famous. In a woman of about 50 years, Alzheimer identifies an "unusual disease of the cerebral cortex", which caused memory loss, disorientation and hallucinations and finally death. In 1907, during the psychiatric Convention of Tubingen, presents the case of this woman, pointing out how, after postmortem analysis, brain monsters "a paucity of cells in the cerebral cortex and groups of filaments located between nerve cells". In 1910 Emil Kraepelin, the most famous German-speaking psychiatrist of the era, republish his treatise "Psychiatry": in his treatise defines a new form of dementia discovered by Alois Alzheimer, calling her "Alzheimer's disease". It turns out that the characterization of the disease have played a key role the young Italian researcher Gaetano Perusini (1879-1915). In 1912, King Wilhelm II of Prussia wants him at the University of Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) named him Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Neurological and psychiatric Institute. Alzheimer's gets sick on the journey by train. This is a severe form of influenza from which it cannot recover. He died on December 19, 1915. The disease or Alzheimer's disease is now referred to as the "degenerative process that progressively destroys brain cells, gradually making the individual who is affected unable to live a normal life." In Italy suffer about 500 thousand person, 18 million worldwide, with a clear predominance of women. The current state of knowledge there is no therapy can prevent or cure the disease, whose course lasts from 8 to 10 years. Intervening early on however, you can act on those degenerative processes that act in the brain in order to slow down the disease. The disease is due to widespread destruction of neurons, caused mainly by a protein called beta amyloid that settling between neurons acts as a kind of adhesive englobing plaques and tangles "tangles". The disease is accompanied by a sharp decrease of acetylcholine in the brain, the fundamental substance for memory but also for other intellectual faculties. The consequence of these brain changes is impossible for the neuron to transmit nerve impulses.