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Chemical Neuroanatomy of Alzheimer’s Disease

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Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a dementing illness, primarily of older adult life, that is characterized by the presence in the brain of neuritic (senile) plaques (NP) and neurofibrillary tangles (NFT). The NFT, which can be visualized by silver staining or by the fluorescent thioflavin-S stain, is an accumulation of fibrillary material that originates within neuronal cell bodies. As the neurofibrillary material accumulates (see Fig. 1), it gradually displaces normal intracellular organelles until the neuron dies, leaving behind an insoluble tangle (Alzheimer, 1907; Adams and Lee, 1982; Saper et al., 1985). On electron microscopy, the NFT consists of paired helical filaments (Terry and Katzman, 1983). The NP, by contrast, consists of a spherical accumulation of densely matted degenerating neurites, primarily axons. The NP often has an amyloid core, which may be associated with a small blood vessel (Wisniewski and Terry, 1973; Hardy et al., 1987). On electron microscopy, the degenerating axons in the NP are also found to contain paired helical filaments (Price, 1986). Thus, NFT and NP represent, respectively, the cell bodies and terminal axons of neurons that have been involved by the degenerative process in AD.

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  1. Departments of Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences and Neurology, and the Brain Research Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 60637, USA

    Clifford B. Saper

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  1. Neuroscience Research Centre, Merck Sharp &Dohme Research Laboratories, Harlow, Essex, England

    Leslie L. Iversen  & Susan D. Iversen  & 

  2. Departments of Neuroscience, Pharmacology, and Psychiatry, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Solomon H. Snyder

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Saper, C.B. (1988). Chemical Neuroanatomy of Alzheimer’s Disease. In: Iversen, L.L., Iversen, S.D., Snyder, S.H. (eds) Handbook of Psychopharmacology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0933-8_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0933-8_4

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