PICALM and Alzheimer disease: The CALM/PICALM gene has also been directly implicated in alterations in cognitive function with increasing age (Mengel-From et al., 2011) in risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (Harold et al., 2009) and in modifying the toxicity of Aβ in a yeast, C. elegans and primary rat cortical neuron models (Treusch et al., 2011).