About this Research Topic
Despite decades of intense scientific exploration, Alzheimer's disease (AD) still remains a fatal global epidemic. More importantly, all recent clinical trials regarding disease modifying agent for AD have failed. Thus, importance of prevention of Alzheimer's disease is receiving even more attention. It is now recognized that Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology begins to accumulate in the brain many years before the onset of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), when individuals are still cognitively normal (preclinical AD). It is therefore of considerable clinical importance to identify factors that may delay progression from normal cognition or preclinical AD to MCI.
One potential factor is cognitive reserve (CR), which is a concept based on a theory that greater lifetime engagement in cognitively stimulating activities may reduce negative effects of brain pathology. AD is a very heterogeneous disorder, but traditional researches failed to acknowledge this fact and still continue to consider AD as one single entity. Therefore, studies concerning role of CR in the AD showed conflicting results, and whether or not CR modifies cognitive trajectories during this preclinical AD phase is still elusive because of conflicting research results.
With the fast growing technologies, scientists are now able to gather data with higher velocity, variety, and volume (big data). With the system biology, the integrated analysis of the big-data became possible leading to era of precision medicine. Precision medicine (PM) has been defined as "prevention and treatment strategies that take individual variability into account."
Thus, the purpose of our project is to begin with importance of cognitive reserve in AD prevention. From this important fundamental concept, this Research Topic plans to elaborate role of physical activity, cognitive training, and potential novel agents (such as vaccines) in the prevention of AD. Thereafter, we plan to discuss how the new technology including big data analysis, AI/Deep learning, precision medicine, and patient health record could play an important role in prevention of AD. By doing so, we hope to let readers understand past, present, and future of prevention tactics of AD.
One potential factor is cognitive reserve (CR), which is a concept based on a theory that greater lifetime engagement in cognitively stimulating activities may reduce negative effects of brain pathology. AD is a very heterogeneous disorder, but traditional researches failed to acknowledge this fact and still continue to consider AD as one single entity. Therefore, studies concerning role of CR in the AD showed conflicting results, and whether or not CR modifies cognitive trajectories during this preclinical AD phase is still elusive because of conflicting research results.
With the fast growing technologies, scientists are now able to gather data with higher velocity, variety, and volume (big data). With the system biology, the integrated analysis of the big-data became possible leading to era of precision medicine. Precision medicine (PM) has been defined as "prevention and treatment strategies that take individual variability into account."
Thus, the purpose of our project is to begin with importance of cognitive reserve in AD prevention. From this important fundamental concept, this Research Topic plans to elaborate role of physical activity, cognitive training, and potential novel agents (such as vaccines) in the prevention of AD. Thereafter, we plan to discuss how the new technology including big data analysis, AI/Deep learning, precision medicine, and patient health record could play an important role in prevention of AD. By doing so, we hope to let readers understand past, present, and future of prevention tactics of AD.
Keywords: Dementia, Alzheimer's, Cognitive Reserve, Prevention, Precision medicine
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