Dr. Mark D'Esposito

very high chance of getting it.

But there's so many factors that it's not necessarily the case that you're increased your risk of getting it.

There are families where there is something special about the family where it just runs in families.

But I try to not scare my patient's children into worrying that they're necessarily going to get Alzheimer's because it's not that straightforward.

Yeah, I mean, it's very frustrating because the neurodegenerative disorders, it's so many factors that are probably involved in the pathology that there's not one single transmitter.

In Parkinson's disease, it's a decreased dopamine, and so one transmitter can make a very big difference.

Early on in Alzheimer's, it was discovered that there was low acetylcholine in the brains, and the only approved

treatment for Alzheimer's disease is a drug that boosts acetylcholine.

What's the drug?

It's called Dinepazil.

There's a few of them.

They're anti-cholinesterase inhibitors that boost acetylcholine.

They've been around for 20 years or more.

And the reality is when you give it to your patients, they don't see much of a difference because it's not the primary deficit.

So the real problem has been trying to find out what is the primary mechanism that's leading to this

the wide range of cognitive behavioral issues.

And there doesn't seem to be at least one neurotransmitter that can make the difference.

And so now the push has been, is there something else that we can do?

Can we block amyloid?

Can we block something in the pathology?