Katia Deng/ Shanghai Daily news

Pei Gang, academician of the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences and his own research group, has discovered the pathogenesis of senile dementia.

He revealed that theβ2 adrenergic receptor causes senile dementia once it's activated. If the receptor could be controlled, the pathogenesis of senile dementia would be delayed.

The latest research has been published in Nature Medicine, a renowned online journal, and the article will be formally published next month. Meanwhile, they have applied for an international patent for the new finding and have stepped up efforts to develop new medicine to treat the disorder.

In the early 1900's, a German psychiatrist, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, first reported senile dementia. At present, there are 20 million patients with senile dementia in the world, with almost one million in China.