APOE and familial Alzheimer disease: Two different forms of AD have been described: (i) early onset familial AD (FAD; Hornsten et al., 2007), associated with mutations in the genes encoding APP, presenilin 1 (PSEN1) and presenilin 2 (PSEN2), and accounting for less than 5% of total AD; and (ii) a more common late onset AD (LOAD), in which a main risk factor is expression of the ε4 allele of the apolipoprotein E gene (APOE).