These procedures were all used in the pre-antibiotic era. There exists a myth that surgeons believed that the purpose was to deprive the organism of oxygen: it was however well known that the organism survives anaerobic conditions. Although these procedures may be considered barbaric by 21st centurys standards, it must be remembered that these treatments represented a potential cure for a disease that at the time had a mortality at least as bad as lung cancer in 2000s. Recurrent or persistent pneumothorax
The simplest and earliest procedure was to introduce air into the pleural space so as to collapse the affected lung and therefore the open cavity. There was always spontaneous resolution of the pneumothorax and the procedure had to be repeated every few weeks. Phrenic nerve crush
The phrenic nerve (which supplies the diaphragm) was cut or crushed so as to permanently paralyse the diaphragm on that side. The paralysed diaphragm would then rise up and the lung on that side would collapse, thus closing the cavity. Thoracoplasty
When the cavity was located in the apex of the lung, thoracoplasty could be performed. Six to eight ribs were broken and pushed into the thoracic cavity to collapse the lung beneath. This was a disfiguring operation, but it avoided the need for repeated procedures. In the Novosibirsk TB Research Institute (Russia), osteoplastic thoracoplasty (a variant of extrapleural thoracoplasty) has been used for the last 50 years for patients with complicated cavitary forms of TB for whom lung resection is contraindicated. Plombage
Plombage reduced the need for a disfiguring operation.
Tauopathy belongs to a class of neurodegenerative diseases involving the aggregation of tau protein into neurofibrillary or gliofibrillary tangles (Neurofibrillary tangle) in the human brain. Tangles are formed by hyperphosphorylation of the microtubule protein known as tau, causing the protein to dissociate from microtubules and form insoluble aggregates. (These aggregations are also called paired helical filaments.) The mechanism of tangle formation is not well understood, and whether tangles are a primary cause of Alzheimers disease or play a peripheral role is unknown. Detection and imaging
Post-mortem
Tau tangles are seen microscopically in stained brain samples.Pre-mortem
In living patients tau tangle locations can be imaged with a PET scan using a suitable radio-emissive agent. Alzheimers disease
Neurofibrillary tangles were first described by Alois Alzheimer in one of his patients with Alzheimers disease (AD). The tangles are  considered a secondary tauopathy. AD is also classified as an amyloidosis because of the presence of senile plaques.When tau becomes hyperphosphorylated, the protein dissociates from the microtubules in axons. Then, tau becomes misfolded and the protein begins to aggregate, which eventually forms the neurofibrillary tangles seen in Alzheimers patients. Microtubules also destabilize when tau is dissociated. The combination of the neurofibrillary tangles and destabilized microtubules result in disruption of processes such as axonal transport and neural communication.The degree of NFT involvement in AD is defined by Braak stages.