The original name for the condition now known as behavioral variant frontotemporal dementiaDementia is not a specific disease. It's an overall term that describes a wide range of symptoms associated with a decline in memory or other thinking skills severe enough to reduce a person's ability to perform everyday activities. Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia. More (bvFTD). Pick's disease is no longer used as a clinical description, but rather names a specific pathology that is one of the causes of frontotemporal lobar degeneration. A defining characteristic of the disease is build-up of tauA protein in the body that aids in stabilizing the proteins that support the structure and shape of neurons and cellular transportation. Tau are abundant in neurons in the central nervous system and are less common elsewhere. Misfolded tau can no longer stabilize microtubules, and this pathology may harm brain cells. Researchers are currently investigating how the later accumulation of... More proteins in neurons, accumulating into silver-staining, spherical aggregations known as “Pick bodies.”
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