[shadowgovt]

This has historically been a challenge regarding understanding the mechanisms of Alzheimer's in the first place, let alone treating the disease.

We know the plaques and the memory dysfunction are correlated. But we don't know whether the plaques are build up of waste product from the mechanism that is destroying memory function or the cause of the memory function loss. If it's merely a waste product, clearing it out of the brain may not only have no effect on the memory loss, it could even accelerate it (if the chemistry of the process is such that build up of plaques interferes with whatever process damages memory). Destroying the plaques may be like picking a scab off a wound.

Biomedicine is hard; none of the systems operate in isolation and everything is intertwined.