MAPT and Alzheimer disease: Cholinergic neurons located in the nucleus basalis of Meynert of affected subjects exhibit a great sensibility to undergo neurofibrillary degeneration at early stages of AD neuropathology (Sassin et al., 2000; Mesulam et al., 2004), suggesting that NGF is also able to influence the tau metabolism, in addition to its effects on basal forebrain cholinergic function(s) and on APP processing (Schliebs and Arendt, 2006).