Symposium Introduction 425

With over 7500 PubMed references alone, the topic of amyloid-β is front and center in the minds of those involved in the study of Alzheimer disease. From diagnostic to genetic to pathologic, amyloid-β has been implicated as a central mediator of the disease. However, recent evidence suggests that the involvement of amyloid-β is more circumstantial than direct and

that tracking amyloid so doggedly has left the real culprit responsible for the disease at large. To address these disparate viewpoints, in a multi-part series, beginning in this issue, we have been fortunate to garnish some of the leading thought leaders in the field to discuss the role of amyloid-β in disease pathogenesis. The debate will clearly not end here but these multifaceted opinions, on what is clearly a multifaceted protein, represents, to our knowledge, the first time that such open discourse has occurred. For this, we are grateful to the scholarly works of the authors and for the opportunity provided by Brain Pathology.

Symposium Editors: Mark A. Smith; Paula I. Moreira; Rudy J. Castellani; George Perry