Molecular Diagnostics and Immunological Markers of Neurodegenerative Disorders

Neurodegeneration is a progressive process that occurs with normal aging with accelerated loss of normal functioning and structure of neurons. The physiological aging of neurons can be expedited by many different factors like neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) including frontotemporal lobe degeneration (FTLD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), vascular dementia (VaD), etc. In the clinical view, the symptoms of different types of neurological disorders have a high degree of similarity, making it difficult for differential diagnosis. Clinicians need strong expertise to reach a correct diagnosis for a particular disease as there are so many established clinical guidelines for the diagnosis of different types of neurological disorders. Here, in this chapter, we shall focus to understand the different molecular diagnostic tools and immunological markers used for the detection of neurodegenerative disorders.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy), CJD (Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease), CSF (Cerebro Spinal Fluid), CWD (Chronic wasting disease), Dementia with Lewy bodies, FFI (Fatal familial insomnia), Frontotemporal lobe degeneration, GSS (Gerstmann– Stra ¨ussler–Scheinker syndrome), Immunology, Marker, Molecular diagnostics, Mutation, Neurodegeneration, Neurodegenerative diseases, PrPSc protein, Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies, Scrapie, Vascular dementia, vCJD (variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease).