Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a high mortality and high disability rates neurodegenerative disease characterized by irreversible progression and poses a significant social and economic burden throughout the world. However, currently approved AD therapeutic agents only alleviate symptoms and there is still a lack of practical therapeutic regimens to stop or slow the progression of this disease. Thus, there is urgently needed novel diagnosis tools and drugs for early diagnosis and treatment of AD. Among several AD pathological hallmarks, amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide deposition is considered a critical initiating factor in AD. In recent years, with the advantages of excellent sensitivity and high resolution, near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) imaging has attracted the attention of many researchers to develop Aβ plaque probes. This review mainly focused on different NIRF probe design strategies for imaging Aβ species to pave the way for the future design of novel NIRF probes for early diagnosis AD.
Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; amyloid-β species; diagnosis; near-infrared fluorescent probes.