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A QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF THE ULTRASTRUCTURE OF PYRAMIDAL NEURONS OF THE CEREBRAL CORTEX IN ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE IN RELATIONSHIP TO THE DEGREE OF DEMENTIA
Author(s) -
SUMPTER P. Q.,
MANN D. M. A.,
DAVIES C. A.,
NEARY D.,
SNOWDEN J. S.,
YATES P. O.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
neuropathology and applied neurobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.538
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1365-2990
pISSN - 0305-1846
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2990.1986.tb00143.x
Subject(s) - dementia , cerebral cortex , ultrastructure , neuroscience , disease , alzheimer's disease , degenerative disease , pathology , cortex (anatomy) , medicine , biology
A quantitative study of the ultrastructure of pyramidal neurons of the cerebral cortex in Alzheimer's disease in relationship to the degree of dementia Quantitative morphometric (stereological) methods have been used to measure the number or amount of organelles in pyramidal nerve cells, unaffected by neurofibrillary degeneration, in biopsy specimens of temporal cortex from 11 patients with Alzheimer's disease, and to relate these to the degree of dementia, as measured by psychometric testing. Only areal proportion (A A ) and surface area (S A ) of rough endoplasmic reticulum were significantly reduced in line with the severity of the degree of dementia. It is suggested that these changes reflect a progressively diminishing requirement for packaging and transport of replacement proteins, particularly in relation to neurotransmitter metabolism in nerve terminals following the loss of synapses which we have shown to occur in these patients.