At the time of biomarker-substantiated diagnosis for a given AD patient it remains unclear to what extent the disease will devastate cognitive abilities within the next years. This is not only unsatisfying for the patient and the attending physician but also a major problem in the context of clinical trials that aim to establish new therapeutic agents. In clinical trials it is critically important to foresee as precisely as possible the course of the disease. The overall aim of the subproject is to identify a panel of CSF biomarkers to further improve specificity of diagnosis ("disease markers"), to measure disease activity and to predict AD progression ("stage and progression markers").