Letter.

Dear Editor,

It is indeed a pleasure to see the continued expansion and progression of Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment and Disease Monitoring, over the last 3 years. The editors and the editorial board are to be commended in the selection and publication of many important manuscripts that continue to advance the field's understanding of Alzheimer's and dementia, arguably perhaps one of the most important global public health problems.

As many readers appreciate, the Journal's title developed out of the early work by the Alzheimer's Association and the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to launch the International Alzheimer's Disease Research Portfolio (IADRP) project. The effort is credited with capturing the evolving nature of Alzheimer's disease research as funded by several different international sponsors. In addition, the project aimed to identify “opportunities for possible coordination of support for Alzheimer's disease research” and “funding gaps as well as areas of overlap within and across domestic and international funding agencies”. To help aid this effort in identifying important gaps, the Journal has played an important supporting role.

The Alzheimer's & Dementia journal family, which also includes Alzheimer's & Dementia and Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions, is focused on several pressing challenges confronting the field. These include the inadequacy of current treatments to alleviate the symptoms of the disease. Also, the difficulty in developing novel interventions to detect [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], delay [56], [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63], [64], [65], [66], [67], [68], [69], or halt disease progression continues to be an important hurdle. The well-recognized public health and economic imperative [70], [71], [72], [73], [74], [75], [76], [77], [78], [79], [80], [81], [82], [83] posed by the disease continues to be an important motivator to communicate new knowledge across multiple disciplines that will help increase the likelihood of unlocking the complexity of neurodegeneration [84], [85], [86], [87], [88], [89], [90] associated with many dementing illnesses.

The Editors within the journal family are challenging authors and reviewers to calibrate articles that better assimilate what is known with emerging evidence. The goal is to promote discussions on new approaches about the biology of dementing illnesses. To this extent, the Journal has successfully encouraged authors to use a variety of techniques for data collection, modeling, and analysis.

Sincerely,

Editorial Office, Alzheimer's & Dementia