Fig. 1.

Common mechanisms of neurodegeneration. Across neurodegenerative diseases, five main areas of mechanistic overlap exist, these include: (1) environmental factors such as diet, age, and, exercise; (2) metabolic stress, e.g., mitochondrial dysfunction, increased reactive oxygen species (ROS); (3) genetic contributions, e.g., genome-wide association study-linked risk alleles (GWAS), sex-linked genetic contributions; (4) neurovascular coupling, e.g., breakdown of the blood-brain-barrier and dysfunctional neurovascular coupling and; (5) neuroinflammation, e.g., infiltration of peripheral immune cells, and increased glial reactivity. Environmental factors contribute to all mechanistic areas of degeneration