The history of neuroscience is marked by a series of milestones, all of which were developed by previous milestones. As is the way of science, not every milestone in the history of neuroscience has proven to be true.

Terms in medicine and science can often be challenging to understand. The fields related to the mind and nervous are no different. Neuroscience, neurology, psychology, psychiatry — you’ve probably heard all of these terms before but do you know how they differ?

Neurological conditions are conditions that have a directly negative impact on the nervous system. But not every neurological condition is due to the same pathophysiology or affects the same part of the nervous system, nor do all neurological conditions present identically (or even similarly) in the clinic.

A new model, proposed by post-doctoral researcher Dr. Jonathan Rudge, offers a novel, compelling explanation for Alzheimer’s disease: The lipid invasion model. Dr. Rudge’s model takes into account many of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, including not only neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques but the presence of lipids and damage to the blood-brain barrier among others, to describe in great detail how risk factors lead to the damage seen in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.

Most of the time, our brains can show us a picture that matches the physical world. Visual illusions remind us that the brain doesn’t always get it right, filling in the gaps with our past experiences and bending the perception of reality to meet our expectations. This offers room for translation errors, genetic missteps, and the opportunity for peculiar side effects in how we experience the world around us.