Activity-Dependent Cell Death in the Nervous System of Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

As humans live longer, more people suffer from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. While neurodegeneration is a hallmark of these diseases, neuronal death is also a normal developmental process during which neurons of other cell types are scheduled to die. It is thought that these normal cell death pathways may be hijacked in neurodegenerative disorders. Understanding the programmed events that are a part of normal cell death is necessary if we are better to understand how neurons die during disease.