Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder of the brain, which is characterized by the formation of extracellular amyloid plaques (or senile plaques) and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles. However, increasing evidences demonstrated that neuroinflammatory changes, including chronic microgliosis are key pathological components of AD. Microglia, the resident immune cells of the brain, is constantly survey the microenvironment under physiological conditions. In AD, deposition of β-amyliod (Aβ) peptide initiates a spectrum of cerebral neuroinflammation mediated by activating microglia. Activated microglia may play a potentially detrimental role by eliciting the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) influencing the surrounding brain tissue. Emerging studies have demonstrated that up-regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines play multiple roles in both neurodegeneration and neuroprotection. Understanding the pro-inflammatory cytokines signaling pathways involved in the regulation of AD is crucial to the development of strategies for therapy. This review will discuss the mechanisms and important role of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the pathogenesis of AD, and the ongoing drug targeting pro-inflammatory cytokine for therapeutic modulation.

Mild Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of dementia, accounting for 50–70% of cases. Alzheimer’s disease is an irreversible neurode

Dementia is a severe neurodegenerative disorder and it can be categorized into several subtypes by different pathogenic causes. We sought to comprehensively analyzed the prevalence of dementia from perspectives of geographic region (Asia, Africa, South America, and Europe/North America), age, and gender. We searched PubMed and EMBASE for relevant articles on dementia published from January 1985 to August 2019. In these studies, analyses were stratified by geographic region, age, and gender. Meta-regression was conducted to identify if there were significant differences between groups. We included forty-seven studies. Among the individuals aged 50 and over in the community, the pooled prevalence for all-cause dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and vascular dementia were 697 (CI95%: 546–864) per 10,000 persons, 324 (CI95%: 228–460) per 10,000 persons, and 116 (CI95%: 86–157) per 10,000 persons, respectively. In our study, the prevalence of all-type dementia in individuals aged 100 years and older (6,592 per 10,000 cases) is 244 times higher than in those aged 50–59 (27 per 10,000 cases). The number of people living with dementia approximately doubles every five years. The prevalence was greater in women than in men (788 cases versus 561 cases per 10,000 persons) in overall analysis. In individuals aged 60 to 69 years, AD prevalence in females was 1.9 times greater than that in males (108 cases versus 56 cases per 10,000 persons), while the prevalence of VaD was 1.8 times greater in males than in females (56 cases versus 32 cases per 10,000 persons). Prevalence rate was higher in Europe and North America than in Asia, Africa, and South America.

Post-stroke cognitive impairment: epidemiology, mechanisms and management