Tangle

Watercolour on 300gsm watercolour paper with ink details, 25 x 35.5cm. This is partnered with Plaque

As we age we all accumulate gunky protein structures in our brains, some more than others. How they contribute to dementia is still open for debate and will be for some years yet. Why is it that some elderly people have a lot of neurofibrillary tangles and no dementia while others develop dementia with very few tangles? If we can answer that question we will be very much closer to creating a treatment. Despite decades of research, we are, alas, many years away from answering the most basic questions around the role of the microtubule protein tau in dementia.