Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease

The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease (JPAD) is a peer-reviewed medical journal established in 2014 and published by Serdi Publishing. It focuses on early diagnosis, preventive strategies, and disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer's disease (AD), with a particular emphasis on biomarkers, at-risk populations, and clinical trials.

📈 Scope and Relevance Strengths:

JPAD fills a niche by focusing exclusively on preclinical and early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, a domain often underrepresented in broader neurology or geriatrics journals.

It regularly features studies from major longitudinal cohorts (e.g., ADNI), international clinical trials (e.g., A4, DIAN-TU), and biomarker consortia, making it a hub for translational dementia research.

Accepts and promotes multi-disciplinary contributions, including neurology, radiology, genetics, and public health.

Weaknesses:

Its focus is narrow — heavily weighted toward pharmaceutical trials and biomarker-based models — often sidelining broader mechanistic or integrative neuroscience insights.

It exhibits editorial favoritism for intervention-focused optimism, frequently framing marginal therapeutic effects in disproportionately positive terms, which raises concerns of publication bias.

🧪 Methodological Rigor Positives:

Many articles undergo statistical peer review and follow standardized reporting guidelines (e.g., STROBE, CONSORT).

The journal promotes biomarker harmonization and trial readiness — important steps toward evidence-based prevention.

Criticisms:

Several studies published are retrospective, exploratory, or underpowered, yet still presented with definitive or therapeutic tones.

There is a tendency to publish “safe” studies with industry-friendly conclusions, especially when involving companies active in AD drug development.

A growing number of papers lean on AI and machine learning buzzwords without clear validation or clinical utility, making the signal-to-noise ratio variable.

💰 Conflicts of Interest and Commercial Influence Many editorial board members and frequent contributors have direct ties to pharmaceutical companies developing AD drugs or diagnostics.

This creates an environment where negative findings are rare, and “prevention” is often a euphemism for early-stage pharmacology pipelines, not public health strategy.

🧠 Neurosurgical Perspective For a neurosurgeon, especially one interested in:

Neurodegeneration

Biomarker validation

Predictive diagnostics for surgical candidates (e.g., NPH vs. AD)

JPAD can offer useful biomarker insight — but it is not a high-impact journal for mechanistic, anatomical, or interventional research. Functional imaging or pathology-driven approaches may find a more rigorous home in journals like Brain, Neurology, or Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

📉 Impact and Scientific Authority JPAD has a modest impact factor (~4.0–5.0 range as of recent years).

It is indexed in major databases (PubMed, Scopus), but is still considered mid-tier in the hierarchy of neurology and aging journals.

Rarely cited in neurosurgical or high-impact neuroscience literature, limiting its reach outside the prevention/pharma community.

🧾 Conclusion JPAD is a focused but commercially-influenced journal, valuable for tracking biomarker-driven trials and early diagnostics in Alzheimer’s research — but methodologically uneven and prone to therapeutic overstatement.

For neurosurgeons, it's informative but not foundational. Read it to stay updated; don’t rely on it to change clinical practice.