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Heavy alcohol consumption and neuropathological lesions: A post‐mortem human study
Author(s) -
Aho Leena,
Karkola Kari,
Juusela Jari,
Alafuzoff Irina
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of neuroscience research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.72
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1097-4547
pISSN - 0360-4012
DOI - 10.1002/jnr.22091
Subject(s) - dementia with lewy bodies , autopsy , pathological , neuropathology , dementia , medicine , etiology , pathogenesis , postmortem studies , alcohol consumption , epidemiology , pathology , alzheimer's disease , disease , cohort , lewy body , physiology , alcohol , biology , biochemistry
Epidemiological studies have indicated that excessive alcohol consumption leads to cognitive impairment, but the specific pathological mechanism involved remains unknown. The present study evaluated the association between heavy alcohol intake and the neuropathological hallmark lesions of the three most common neurodegenerative disorders, i.e., Alzheimer's disease (AD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and vascular cognitive impairment (VCI), in post‐mortem human brains. The study cohort was sampled from the subjects who underwent a medicolegal autopsy during a 6‐month period in 1999 and it included 54 heavy alcohol consumers and 54 age‐ and gender‐matched control subjects. Immunohistochemical methodology was used to visualize the aggregation of β‐amyloid, hyperphosphorylated τ, and α‐synuclein and the extent of infarcts. In the present study, no statistically significant influence was observed for alcohol consumption on the extent of neuropathological lesions encountered in the three most common degenerative disorders. Our results indicate that alcohol‐related dementia differs from VCI, AD, and DLB; i.e., it has a different etiology and pathogenesis. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.