Dates: April 18-22, 2026
Location: McCormick Place, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Organizer: American Academy of Neurology
Website: aanannualmeeting.com
The neurodegeneration track at AAN 2026 showcases the latest advances in understanding and treating neurodegenerative diseases. Sessions focus on mechanisms, biomarkers, and therapeutic approaches for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and related disorders.
Key platform sessions covering original research:
- Alzheimer's Disease Mechanisms: Amyloid, tau, and neuroinflammation
- Parkinson's Disease: Alpha-synuclein, LRRK2, and GBA
- Frontotemporal Dementia: TARDBP, C9orf72, and tau
- Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: SOD1, TDP-43 pathology
- Huntington's Disease: Huntingtin and gene therapy
Interactive presentations:
- Biomarker Studies: Blood, CSF, and imaging
- Clinical Outcomes: Functional assessments
- Therapeutic Trials: Phase 1-3 results
- Diagnostic Criteria: NIA-AA, MDS criteria
- Management Guidelines: Best practices
- Case Discussions: Challenging presentations
¶ Hands-on Workshops
- Biomarker Interpretation: Clinical application
- Neuropsychological Assessment: Cognitive testing
- Movement Disorders: Clinical examination
- Amyloid-beta oligomerization: Toxic species identification
- ARIA: Mechanisms and management
- Amyloid clearance: Cellular and molecular pathways[@hodecker2023]
- Tau phosphorylation: Kinases and phosphatases
- Tau spreading: Prion-like propagation
- Tau modifications: Acetylation, truncation
- Oligomer formation: Toxic mechanisms
- Cell-to-cell transmission: Spreading mechanisms
- Strain diversity: Clinical correlations
- Disease-associated microglia (DAM): Activation states
- TREM2 biology: Genetic risk and function
- CSF1R inhibition: Microglial modulation[@sankowski2019]
- Synaptic pruning: C1q and C3 roles
- Inflammasome activation: NLRP3 signaling
- Therapeutic targeting: Complement inhibition
- Blood-based biomarkers: p-tau217, NfL, GFAP
- CSF biomarkers: Core AD markers
- Emerging markers: Novel analytes
- Amyloid PET: Centiloid standardization
- Tau PET: Regional quantification
- FDG PET: Metabolic patterns
- Anti-amyloid antibodies: Lecanemab, donanemab
- Anti-tau approaches: Immunotherapies, small molecules
- Alpha-synuclein targeting: Immunotherapies
- Cognitive enhancement: Cholinergic approaches
- Motor symptoms: Dopaminergic therapies
- Non-motor symptoms: Multi-disciplinary management
- Synaptic preservation: Functional protection
- Metabolic support: Mitochondrial function
- Oxidative stress: Antioxidant approaches
- Presidential Lecture: Future of neurodegeneration research
- Keynote Address: Integration of mechanisms
- Late-Breaking Science: Recent trial results
- Neurodegeneration Summit: Cross-disease perspectives
- Biomarker Integration: Clinical practice
- Therapeutic Development: Pipeline overview
- Early Career Neurology: Research training
- Mentorship Programs: Junior investigator guidance
- Grant Writing: NIH funding strategies
- Protein aggregation: Common therapeutic targets
- Neuroinflammation: Microglial involvement
- Oxidative stress: Mitochondrial dysfunction
- Autophagy: Protein clearance systems
- NfL: Cross-disease neurodegeneration marker
- Neuroinflammation: Shared inflammatory markers
- Imaging: Common imaging paradigms
- Immunotherapies: Platform approaches
- Gene therapy: Common targets
- Small molecules: Multi-disease potential
- Biomarker-guided diagnosis: AT(N) framework
- Clinical criteria: Integration with biomarkers
- Differential diagnosis: Cross-disease distinction
- Personalized medicine: Genetic and biomarker typing
- Combination therapies: Multi-target strategies
- Monitoring: Biomarker-guided follow-up
- Multidisciplinary care: Team approaches
- Supportive care: Quality of life
- Caregiver support: Family interventions
- AAN 2026 Annual Meeting
- Hodecker et al., Amyloid-related imaging abnormalities (2023)
- Sankowski et al., Microglial activation states (2019)
- Neurodegeneration Research