If we must, then let's talk money

I'll be completely honest with you, I have been (blissfully) ignoring this aspect of neuroscience research since last year and I would have continued to ignore it this year, but then Noah's first content-related question was, "What diseases diverted money away from Alzheimer’s funding?" and the one right after it being, "Why hasn’t Alzheimer’s been cured yet?" Maybe this is completely off the mark, but I think those two questions are related in that if Alzheimer's research is not being funded properly, it cannot be cured. So I guess we have to talk about money now, but have no fear, if we can make it through confusing glucose posts, talking about funding will be no problem.

My very first thought when I saw these two questions was that Alzheimer's is kind of like the perfect storm for funding. And I know it sounds weird but hear me out. Essentially, this is what I think of; in order to get funding to study or cure a certain disease, you want something that affects a lot of people (check), something that causes drastic deficit in the human being and their family (check) and lastly, stories that tug at those grant(ers?)' heartstrings (CHECK). So as I looked into this, I came to the conclusion that money is not lacking from Alzheimer's research. People are getting grants all of the time to build various models of the disease or to test out a new cognitive drug, but theoretically, if Alzheimer's research has the proper financial funding, then I'm on board with Noah, why hasn't it been cured yet?

The answer here, looks quite a bit more bleak than the answer to funding. When asking why Alzheimer's hasn't been cured yet, I think though that we also must keep in mind the nature of the beast - how do you fix misfolding proteins? How do you find the pathway between a micro-sized problem and it's humongous physical manifestations? In short, I think a cure for Alzheimer's hasn't been found yet because scientists are stumped. How do you study something you can't watch happening (at least, not in humans)? That's why researchers are simply straining to create models of the disease. Can you imagine that? Technically, the question should not be why hasn't Alzheimer's been cured yet, it should be, "why hasn't Alzheimer's been understood yet?"

It's not a matter of money problems or lack of attention to Alzheimer's Disease, it's that researchers are having a difficult time cracking its code. And that makes me kind of obsolete only because I'm taking an even larger step back than understanding Alzheimer's in humans - I'm studying Alzheimer's in C. elegans. And I suppose that's alright for my personal purpose, but it goes to show that Alzheimer's is probably one of the trickiest diseases to understand and cure. Do I think that a cure will be found for Alzheimer's? I think so, at some point that's probably further in the future than it is near. But I also think that the reason we have yet to find that cure, is not because there isn't enough money. It's because we're having trouble understanding. And that struggle, the struggle to understand, is perhaps the most priceless and intense struggle possible.