Neurochemical dementia diagnostics: assays in CSF and blood.

In this review, current neurochemical dementia diagnostics (NDD) procedures are presented with a focus on biomarkers in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood: amyloid beta peptides, tau protein, and its phosphorylated form (pTau). CSF analysis is an increasingly important tool for early and differential diagnosis of dementia syndromes. Although lumbar puncture is a mildly invasive procedure with a low incidence of complications, establishing blood assays capable of reliably measuring NDD biomarkers is an aim of several studies worldwide.