What Alzheimer's Does to the Brain

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The disease is characterized by the gradual spread of sticky plaques and clumps of tangled fibers that disrupt the delicate organization of nerve cells in the brain. As brain cells stop communicating with one another, they atrophy — causing memory and reasoning to fade

1. Tangles and plaques first appear in the entorhinal cortex, an essential memory processing center needed for making new memories and retrieving old ones

2. Over time they move higher, invading the hippocapus, the past of the brain that forms complex memories of events or objects

3. Finally the tangles and plaques reach the top of the brain, or neocortex, the "executive" that sorts through stimuli and orchestrates all behavior