MAPT and Alzheimer disease: Post-mortem AD brain tissue is characterized by pathological markers including amyloid plaques, tau neurofibrillary tangles, vascular damage from the plaque deposition, and profound neuronal cell loss (Blessed et al., 1968; Katzman and Saitoh, 1991; Selkoe, 1991; for a review see Uylings and de Brabander, 2002).