Table 1.

General characteristics of main neurodegenerative diseases.

Disease	Principal mechanism	Preferential location	Authors
Alzheimer’s disease	Senile plaques: Aβ protein deposits Neurofibrillary tangles: Intracellular accumulation of p-tau	Hippocampus	Jellinger KA (2012)1
Parkinson’s disease	α-synuclein accumulation, Lewy body cytoplasmic inclusions	Brain stem, mainly Striatonigral dopaminergic system	Jellinger KA (2012)1
Lewy body disease	α-synuclein accumulation, Lewy body cytoplasmic inclusions	Wide distribution, mainly frontal cortex, brain stem, basal prosencephalon, cortical areas with limbic projections, dorsal efferent nucleus of the vagus	Beyer K et al. (2009)2
Multiple system atrophy	α-synuclein accumulation, glial cytoplasmic inclusions	Striatonigral and olivopontocerebellar system	Ahmed Z et al. (2012)3
Huntington’s disease	Huntingtin intranuclear inclusions	Caudate nuclei and putamen	Ahmed Z et al. (2012)3
Frontotemporal dementia	Accumulation of the tau protein, ubiquitin and TDP-43 immunoreactive inclusions	Frontal and temporal lobes	Seelaar H et al. (2011)4
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis	Immunoreactive ubiquitin and TDP-43 inclusions Bunina body cytoplasmic inclusions	Motor neuron	Wijesekera LC et al. (2009)5

Aβ: Amyloid βeta protein; p-tau: tau hyperphosphorylated protein; TDP-43:TAR DNA-binding protein of 43 kDa.