MAPT and frontotemporal dementia: On the other hand, tau-based strategies (and targets other than Aβ) have received little consideration until very recently even though extensive tau pathology is crucial to the disease and that recent genetic studies have discovered mutations within the tau gene leading to frontotemporal dementia, demonstrating that tau dysfunction per se, in the absence of amyloid pathology, is enough to cause neurodegeneration and clinical dementia.