Professor Changiz Geula at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center at Northwestern's Feinberg School in Illinois said that their research has shown that, we accumulate these tangles as we grow older. These protein tangles are associated with memory loss. People with Alzheimer's disease have more of these tangles compared to those without.
What makes this more interesting is the result of their study on the brains of "super aged" people who have died---they have much fewer or zero tangles! "Super aged" people are the elderly whose memories stay razor-sharp and performed way better than regular dudes their age.
It would be cool then if these geeks in white could find a way to "untangle" these tangles in the brain, right?
