Recently, I picked up Still Alice by Lisa Genova and didn’t put it down until I was finished. The story follows Alice Howland, a Harvard psychology professor in her fifties, as she begins to experience lapses in memory. At first, she forgets little things such as board meetings and where she left her keys, which she attributes to stress and menopause. But one day, as she’s out on a run in Harvard Square, she becomes completely disoriented and does not know where she is or how to get home. When she finally goes to see a neurologist, she is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects a large area of the brain, specifically the hippocampus, a region of the brain responsible for memory. So called plaques and tangles—a build-up of cellular debris and protein—disrupt the activity of cells in the hippocampus and surrounding cerebral cortex, damaging them.
Amy Casarella (Wed,) studied this question.