Understanding the link between insulin resistance and Alzheimer's disease: Insights from animal models.

Understanding the link between insulin resistance and Alzheimer's disease: Insights from animal models.
Exp Neurol. 2019 Mar 28;:
Authors: De Silva NML, Gonçalves RA, Boehnke SE, Forny-Germano L, Munoz DP, De Felice FG
Abstract
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating neurodegenerative disease affecting millions of people worldwide. AD is characterized by a profound impairment of higher cognitive functions and still lacks any effective disease-modifying treatment. Defective insulin signaling has been implicated in AD pathophysiology, but the mechanisms underlying this process are not fully understood. Here, we review the molecular mechanisms underlying defective brain insulin signaling in rodent models of AD, and in a non-human primate (NHP) model of the disease that recapitulates features observed in AD brains. We further highlight similarities between the NHP and human brains and discuss why NHP models of AD are important to understand disease mechanisms and to improve the translation of effective therapies to humans. We discuss how studies using different animal models have contributed to elucidate the link between insulin resistance and AD.
PMID: 30930096 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Experimental Neurology - March 27, 2019 Category: Neurology Authors: De Silva NML, Gonçalves RA, Boehnke SE, Forny-Germano L, Munoz DP, De Felice FG Tags: Exp Neurol Source Type: research