MAPT and Alzheimer disease: However, in a subset of neurodegenerative disorders called tauopathies [e.g., Alzheimer’s disease (AD), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), Pick’s disease, etc.], tau becomes modified (e.g., by phosphorylation, acetylation, proteolytic processing, etc.), concomitant with neurofibrillary tangle formation [6] which is suspected to induce neurodegeneration.