Dementia includes several diseases characterized by acquired and irreversible brain dysfunctions that interfere with daily life. According to the etiology, dementia can be induced by poisoning or metabolic disorders, and other cases of dementia have a clear pathogenesis. However, half of neurodegenerative diseases have an unclear pathogenesis and etiology. Alzheimer's disease (AD), Lewy body dementia and frontal-temporal dementia are the three most common types of dementia. These neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by the appearance of the following specific protein inclusions: amyloid beta and tau in AD; α-synuclein in Lewy body dementia; and tau, TDP-43, or FUS in frontal-temporal dementia. Thus far, studies on the pathogenesis of dementia mainly focus aberrant inclusions formed by the aforementioned proteins. As a historically heavily studied protein tau is likely to be associated with the pathogenesis of several neurodegenerative diseases that cause dementia. The role of tau in neurodegeneration has been unknown for many years. However, both pathological and genetic analyses have helped tau become gradually recognized as an important factor in the pathogenesis of tauopathy. Currently, especially in the field of AD, tau is attracting more attention and is being considered a potential target for drug development. In this review article, previously discovered biochemical and pathological features of tau are highlighted, and current opinions regarding the neurotoxicity of tau are summarized. Additionally, we introduce key amino acid sequences responsible for tau neurotoxicity from our studies using transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans. Finally, a new hypothesis regarding the roles of microtubule-associated protein 2 (MAP2) and tau in the pathogenesis of tauopathy is discussed.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 10. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 January 2017.
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#3,252,496
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Outputs from Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience
#505
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#67,712
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Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience
#23
of 84 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,925,760 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 85th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,895 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.7. This one has done well, scoring higher than 81% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 420,925 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 84 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 67% of its contemporaries.
