In my unsubstantiated opinion it's likely to be herpesviridae that make their way to the brain due to their affinity for nerve tissue and the fact up to 80% of Americans have HSV1. Separately 50% of Americans have cytomegalovirus, another herpes virus. And yet more have HSV6 and HSV8. It's safe to assume over 90% of Americans have some latent herpes-family virus.
It also explains why acyclovir and valacyclovir dramatically reduces the risk of developing dementia.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55423-9
[2] https://www.infectiousdiseaseadvisor.com/news/antivirals-for...
Curious, would this be hard to verify? To a layman that sounds like something that would be easily detectable under a microscope using samples of brain.
Sounds fascinating, where could one read more about this? I don’t think I’ve come across this before.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7882534/
[2] https://alzres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13195-021...
And here's a clinical trial that's been running since 2018, scheduled for conclusion at EOY 2024.
[3] https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03282916
This is a very in-depth hypothesis paper that explains more.