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Higher Aluminum Concentration in Alzheimer’s Disease After Box–Cox Data Transformation

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Abstract

Evidence regarding the role of mercury and aluminum in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains controversial. The aims of our project were to investigate the content of the selected metals in brain tissue samples and the use of a specific mathematical transform to eliminate the disadvantage of a strong positive skew in the original data distribution. In this study, we used atomic absorption spectrophotometry to determine mercury and aluminum concentrations in the hippocampus and associative visual cortex of 29 neuropathologically confirmed AD and 27 age-matched controls. The Box–Cox data transformation was used for statistical evaluation. AD brains had higher mean aluminum concentrations in the hippocampus than controls (0.357 vs. 0.090 μg/g; P = 0.039) after data transformation. Results for mercury were not significant. Original data regarding microelement concentrations are heavily skewed and do not pass the normality test in general. A Box–Cox transformation can eliminate this disadvantage and allow parametric testing.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Thomas Secrest for revisions on the English version of this article. This study was partly supported by Grant SGS10/092/OHK4/1T/14 and Grant No 309/09/P204 of the Grant Agency of Czech Republic and research program MŠM 0021620849 of the Czech Ministry of Education.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Thomayer Teaching Hospital and Institute for Postgraduate Education in Medicine, Vídeňská 800, 140 59, Prague, Czech Republic

    Robert Rusina & Pavel Urban

  2. Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, Thomayer Teaching Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic

    Radoslav Matěj

  3. National Institute of Public Health, Prague, Czech Republic

    Lucie Kašparová & Pavel Urban

  4. Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, Czech Technical University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Jaromír Kukal

Authors
  1. Robert Rusina
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  2. Radoslav Matěj
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  3. Lucie Kašparová
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  4. Jaromír Kukal
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  5. Pavel Urban
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Correspondence to Robert Rusina.

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Rusina, R., Matěj, R., Kašparová, L. et al. Higher Aluminum Concentration in Alzheimer’s Disease After Box–Cox Data Transformation. Neurotox Res 20, 329–333 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12640-011-9246-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12640-011-9246-y

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