- Starts in the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus
- Brain tau continues to accumulate as AD progresses
- Tau spreads through the brain by oligomer “seeds” that travel across a synapse, allowing a nerve cell to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another nerve cell
- The total amount of abnormal tau in the AD brain is linked to the stage of the disease and its severity

Michigan State University

- Protein found in neurons in the brain
- Remained in the shadow of the amyloid theory during the late 1980s and early 1990s
- Essential for microtubule assembly
- Normal tau protein forms part of a structure called a microtubule
- In people with AD, the tau protein is misfolded and has an abnormal shape
- One of the functions of the microtubule is to help transport nutrients and other important substances from one part of the nerve cell to another
- Tau buildup

The role of Tau proteins in Alzheimer's Disease

Šimić, G., Babić Leko, M., Wray, S., Harrington, C. R., Delalle, I., Jovanov-Milošević, N., Bažadona, D., Buée, L., de Silva, R., Di Giovanni, G., Wischik, C. M., &amp; Hof, P. R. (2017). Monoaminergic neuropathology in Alzheimer’s disease. Progress in Neurobiology, 151, 101–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pneurobio.2016.04.001 

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