Abstract
Senile dementia of the Alzheimer type is a chronic, progressive neuropsychiatrie condition characterized clinically by global intellectual impairment1 and neuropathologically by the presence of numerous argyrophilic plaques and tangles2–4. Neurochemical investigations have established loss of the cholinergic5,6 and aminergic7,8 projections to the cerebral cortex and a loss of the content of somatostatin9–12, with preservation of chole-cystokinin11–13 and vasoactive intestinal polypeptide11,14, neuropeptides also located in cells intrinsic to the cortex. We describe here the relationship between cortical somatostatin immunoreactivity and the plaques and tangles of diseased tissue by immunocytochemical and silver impregnation techniques on paraffin-embedded tissue. In sections of Alzheimer's tissue, cortical somatostatin-immunoreactive perikarya exhibited morphological changes consistent with neuronal degeneration. Silver-stained material immunostained subsequently showed that many neurones containing tangles were also somatostatin positive. No such co-localization was observed using antisera to other neuropeptides. Our findings indicate that a subclass of somatostatin-positive neurones are affected selectively in Alzheimer's disease and that these neurones also contain neuronal tangles. Thus, destruction of somatostatin-containing neurones is an early and perhaps critical event in the disease process.
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Roberts, G., Crow, T. & Polak, J. Location of neuronal tangles in somatostatin neurones in Alzheimer's disease. Nature 314, 92–94 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1038/314092a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/314092a0
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