Single molecule imaging of protein aggregation in Dementia: Methods, insights and prospects

The aggregation of misfolded proteins is a fundamental pathology in neurodegeneration which remains poorly understood due to its exceptional complexity and lack of appropriate characterization tools that can probe the role of the low concentrations of heterogeneous protein aggregates formed during the progression of the disease. In this review, we explain the principles underlying the operation of single molecule microscopy, an imaging method that can resolve molecules one-by-one, its application to imaging and characterizing individual protein aggregates in human samples and in vitro as well as the important questions in neurobiology this has answered and can answer.