Animal models of Alzheimer's disease: an understanding of pathology and therapeutic avenues.

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder with unclear etiology for a few decades. Many animal models employed to study the etiology of the disease and test the efficacy of a drug could give limited understanding of these events. Introduction of aluminum salts into aged New Zealand rabbit brain could demonstrate neurofibrillary tangle formation in 1965. This outstanding contribution substantiated the role of aluminum in Alzheimer's disease in turn becoming the basis further molecular studies in rabbits. In this review, various animal models (transgenic mice, rats, rabbits, zebrafish) used to study the pathology of the disease and to test the efficacy of a drug have been summarized. It also focuses on the growing need to unravel the molecular underpinnings of the disease progression.