Talk:Amyloid plaques

I moved the following formation and description section to the talk page, as it's largely incoherent and I don't feel qualified to clean it properly. Some of the info could be reintegrated into the article. Robotsintrouble 01:04, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Formation and description
They can be distinguished by their composition. The amyloid of the plaques is composed of deposits of Aß-peptides (mostly 39 to 42 amino acids in length). The amyloid of the plaques is composed of deposits of Aß-peptides (mostly 39 to 42 amino acids in length). The formation seems to be a result of composition and decomposition processes. The plaques have a porous core with a decreasingly density to the periphery. A genetic background is a false genetic code of the amyloid precursor protein in chromosome 21, or false codes of presenilin 1 and 2 in chromosomes 14 and 1. A genetic risk factor ist the epsilon-4-allel of apolipoprotein E. When the dismantling of the amyloid precursor protein is disturbed, the Aß-peptides deposit in blood vessels or as extracellular plaques. But there are more factors important for the formation, like hormonal, immunological, inflammation processes, disorders of the fat and carbohydrate metabolism.

Secondary Review
The article was very well written but slightly difficult to understand. Someone without an extensive science background may have trouble understanding much of what is said in the article. Based on the complexity of the topic, this might be difficult to resolve, but if possible, offer more description or try to simplify the language. I would also suggest possibly rearranging the subtopics by moving "History" and "Disease" before "Occurrence." Arakdpr (talk) 23:53, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * We appreciate your input Arakdpr!!
 * We do agree that at times scientific terms were used excessively. We tried to use words that were easier to understand. When we used complex terms links were added or a brief explanation was provided. The subtopics were also rearranged.
 * Thanks again SewellBio (talk) 00:51, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Primary Review
For the most part the article is well written. However, there are a few grammar mistakes throughout the article (I listed the ones I saw below) that should be corrected. Some of the wording was confusing and someone without a scientific background would have a hard time understanding the concepts you are trying to convey. Try to use simpler words or offer more explanations/definitions to as what the scientific terms you use mean.

The order of topics in this article should be switched around so that “History” and “Disease” should come before “Occurrence”. This might help with the clarity of the article – giving the reader the background information they need to understand the rest of the article.

The pictures used were good because the staining techniques they represent were talked about in the article.

This article I specifically reviewed was, “Staging of Alzheimer-Related Cortical Destruction”, which is a credible source (from pubmed) with the information cited correctly in the article.

Here are the grammar mistakes/clarity issues I found while reviewing the article:
 * 1) Under the “Formation and Description” section in the sentence, “this region comprises part of exon's 16 and 17 of the 18 exon's spanning the gene contained on the Amyloid Precursor Protein”, is the second “exon” supposed to be possessive?
 * 2) The sentence “β-secretase (BACE) analogous to a peptidase enzyme that catabolizes proteins and peptides” is confusing, is there supposed to be an “is” before analogous?
 * 3) In the “Occurrence” section, percentages are given but no source is cited directly after, maybe cite a source after this to make the information appear more credible, show where the percentages came from.
 * 4) In the “History” section, the sentence “in 1985 succeeded the biochemical identification of beta amyloid” is confusing. It is not clear what succeeded the biochemical identification of beta amyloid.  Also, in this section there should be a period added to the end of the sentence “the formation and distribution of the pathological neurofibrillaries have a regularity”.  Gfolan (talk) 17:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Hello Gfolan! Thanks for your suggestions.
 * There were several grammatical errors throughout the article. The errors that you noted were corrected. We also re-read the article to ensure that all grammatical mistakes were corrected. The "Formation and Description" portion was very technical. It would be difficult for an individual without a scientific background to understand some sections of this article. Many changes were made to this portion of the page. We tried to use simpler words but for the scientific terms we needed to keep, links were added or a brief explanation was provided. Also, you offered a great suggestion on how to order the topics we discussed to provide more clarity. This suggestion was valid and changes were made considering the order you suggested.
 * Thanks again for your help! SewellBio (talk) 23:43, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
Great job on the article. I especially liked the illustrations you were able to include. I agree with other reviewers and I think the order of the paragraphs should be changed. I also noticed that there are only 7 paragraphs and 10 are required by the rubric. I am not sure if you have already discussed this with our professor. Additionally, in the sentence "From an age of 60 years (10%) to an age of 80 years (60%) the proportion ..." I think there should be sources included directly for the percentages provided. ECBMilwaukee (talk) 01:54, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Primary Review
CK3501 (talk) 03:56, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Writing - Overall, the article was well written. The language was very technical but appeared to be utilized accurately. I also have a few grammatical and formatting changes to suggest:
 * Remove the banner for inline citations at the top of the page. This is now out of date.
 * In the initial description, I would alter the sentence "These deposits can also be a byproduct of senescence, or biological aging, however large numbers of senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are characteristic features of Alzheimer's disease." To read "These deposits can be a byproduct of senescence; however, large numbers of senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are also characteristic features of Alzheimer's disease."
 * Under Formation and Description, remove the apostrophes on BOTH "exon's" (change to "exons") - neither of these are possessive. I would also put an enter after this sentence ("This region comprises part of exons 16 and 17 of the 18 exons spanning the gene contained on the Amyloid Precursor Protein.")to create a new paragraph.
 * Also under Formation and Description, I agree with Gfolan that "is" should be inserted in the sentence after "(BASE)" to read "β-secretase (BACE) is analogous..."
 * Under Occurrence, a comma needs to be inserted in the sentence "From an age of 60 years (10%) to an age of 80 years (60%)>>,<< the proportion of people with plaques increases approximately linearly."
 * Under History, there is a period missing from the end of the sentence "The formation and the distribution of the pathological neurofibrillaries have a regularity>>.<<"
 * The last sentence under history should be connected to the sentence before it with a comma to be "identification of beta amyloid, but there..."
 * The words "pathological neurofibrillaries, tangles, and atrophic brain with hydrocephalus" are repeated under both History and Disease. I would suggest rephrasing or removing it from one of the categories.
 * Under Research, I would split "An increasing variety of compounds that reduce beta amyloid levels are being identified, several have beta amyloid 42 selectivity whereas others attempt to modulate amyloid precursor protein." into two sentences at the comma.
 * Verifiable with no original research - I checked the source "The role of amyloid beta peptide 42 in Alzheimer's disease". It was a reliable secondary medical source from Pubmed and all the information the authors cited to this source from the article was present. The citation was formatted correctly. I would not suggest using any further information from the article, well done.
 * Broad in coverage - The topic was well covered. Very in-depth and thorough. The "See also" category is a nice touch!
 * Neutral - Yes, great job on this.
 * Illustrated - The images used were well chosen and enhance the appearance of the page.

Thank you for your time in reviewing our article CK3501. In response to your suggestions, we would like to leave the line "or biological aging" in so that people who are unfamiliar with the term senescence will know what it means without having to click through to that page. Your other suggestions were very helpful and have been accounted for. 3076mengfrp (talk) 01:36, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Primary Review
Bzastrow (talk) 17:48, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Writing - On the whole, this article is very well written. However, there are a few grammatical and styling errors, which I have listed below. In addition, I would change the order of the paragraphs. Here is my proposed order: Introduction, History, Formation and Description, Identification, Disease, Occurrence. I believe that ordering the paragraphs this way will help with the clarity of the article and add to its fluidity.
 * The "Formation and Description" paragraph is well written and has a good amount of detail. However, the terminology used gets confusing. I don't know for sure if this is a possibility, but perhaps you should try to make it a little less wordy.
 * Under "Occurrence," the wording "approximately linearly" comes across awkward. A suggested change could be "the proportion of people increases in approximately a linear fashion."
 * In the "History" paragraph a period is missing after the sentence "The formation and the distribution of the pathological neurofibrillaries have a regularity"
 * Verifiable with no original research - The source I checked was titled, "Amyloid precursor protein, presenilins, and alpha-synuclein: molecular pathogenesis and pharmacological applications in Alzheimer's disease." This was a fantastic source! Full of secondary research and present on Pubmed. All of the information that was used on the Wikipage can be found in the article. After reading through it, I could not find any further information that would be beneficial to the Wikipage. Great job, though!
 * Broad in coverage - Very good job here. I really think the presence of the "History" paragraph adds a lot to your article, especially in terms of broad coverage. There is not anything I would change regarding this criteria.
 * Neutral - No apparent biases were present, good job.
 * Illustrated - The images used do a good job of adding to the article. Their presence definitely improves the quality.


 * Hello [User:Bzastrow]]!!
 * We appreciate your input. There were a few grammatical errors that were corrected. You made a suggestion about the order of our paragraphs and the idea was great. We completely adopted your proposed order. It did help the fluidity of the article.


 * The "Formation and Description" section was reviewed and some changes were made to reduce the confusing terminology. We also tried to make this section less wordy. The other grammatical mistakes you mentioned were also corrected.
 * Thanks SewellBio (talk) 04:07, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
The article was well written but somewhat hard to understand. The paragraph about the formation of the senile plaques would be extremely hard to follow for anyone that does not understand the biochemistry behind the process. I would suggest attempting to make that paragraph more understandable for those without background in science. The organization of your paragraphs is also a bit confusing. The history paragraph seem to come out of no where and although it reads well it feels out of place. It would probably fit better earlier in the article leaving the more science related articles bunched together. Tnasci1313 (talk) 20:32, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
Very good article. As some other reviews have mentioned, it is a bit technical. However, due to the nature of the subject I think that's probably to be expected. Also, since the article links out to many different pages, anything that is not understood can be found on another wiki page (which is how wikipedia is supposed to work). I thought the pictures were well chosen. There were only a couple things I wasn't sure about. In the "Occurrence" section, are the first three sentences covered by the citation after the fact about gender differences? If not, some citations for those claims may be welcome. Also, would it maybe make more sense to have the "formation and description" topic before "identification", since most people who come to the page are just going to be looking for a description of the topic? Anyway, I thought the article was very well done. Xc stallion92 (talk) 20:58, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
I did not really find anything wrong with the article that was not already mentioned. The formation of plaques section is definitely very technical. I think that including some descriptions about what is being talked about would be very useful. The first sentence of this section “Concentrated in the synapse of neurons is an Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) which is a type I integral transmembrane protein” is a great example of what you can do to make it easier to read. It is a short article but I think it is very concise and delivers the information well so I wouldn’t stress about adding extra paragraphs just to hit the 10 paragraph limit. The history section can be moved to the top. Overall, this was very well done. Good job on putting in those images. Alphabetfood (talk) 22:55, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
This article is well written and the group did a very good job. This article helped teach me a lot but I suggest trying to add some clarification because I seemed to get lost at times. Not all of it was easily comprehended by me. I also suggest maybe adding more about the research at the end. For example, what exact research has been done and what the results have been. P meyer9614 (talk) 04:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Hello User:P meyer9614!
 * We are glad that you learned something new. There were some grammatical errors that made the writing a bit unclear. We have gone through the article to try to clarify some aspects that may be unclear. Also, your suggestion to add information to the research topic is a great idea. We will try to add additional information.
 * Thanks again SewellBio (talk) 01:16, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
After reading the article, here are a few suggestions to consider when revising:


 * As previous reviewers have noted, I would organize the paragraphs a little differently to make it flow better. For example, have history as one of the first paragraphs and maybe have identification close by the disease section


 * Along with organizing the paragraphs a little bit, is there any information in the prevention of Senile plagues, as well as, possible solutions in restricting their spread if they do occur?


 * I like the images that correlate with the article and I think they do a great job of displaying examples for the reader.


 * If possible, try to make the Formation and Description section a little easier to read. It's hard with such a complex issue but may make it easier for a non-science individual to read.

Cdrellishak (talk) 02:35, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Faculty Review
Overall the article is well written, particularly considering how late you guys decided on a topic. In some cases you used words that while accurate, may make the reading of the article more difficult. I have done some really minor editing to make it more readable. Hopefully I was able to understand your meaning so that I didn't change that with my edits.

Did you really read an article in German or did you find a translation of it? MMBiology (talk) 18:19, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Senile/amyloid plaques
What's the diference between senile plaques and amyloid plaques? Are they the same? This should be explained in the article.--Miguelferig (talk) 20:53, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Infective Amyloids
Is there a credible study or review that debunked theory that amyloids that cause Alzheimer's disease could be transmissible and infective? I've found one such article that makes this claim (it refers to a primary study): (primary article ). AXO NOV (talk) ⚑ 15:06, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Recent developments "exposing" amyloid plaque research
There has been quite some noise in the last few years, and some media attention lately, to the complete lack of efficacy of Alzheimer treatments based on the amyloid plaque hypothesis. The history section should reflect these developments and there should perhaps be another section about the controversy surrounding this. Phiarc (talk) 13:07, 24 July 2022 (UTC)


 * This article from Science claiming cheating should perhaps be mentioned? https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease 51.175.139.211 (talk) 11:37, 6 October 2022 (UTC)