Alzheimer's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Alzheimer's Disease, including details on diagnosis, memory loss, heredity, treatment, medication.

Ballooned neurones in the limbic lobe are associated with Alzheimer type pathology and lack diagnostic specificity.

Fujino Y, Delucia MW, Davies P, Dickson DW

Department of Pathology (Neuropathology), Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Jacksonville, FL 32224, USA.

Ballooned neurones (BNs) are one of the pathological hallmarks of several neurodegenerative diseases, including Pick's disease, corticobasal degeneration and argyrophilic grain disease (AGD). They have also been described in Alzheimer disease (AD), but the frequency of BNs in AD has not been systematically addressed. In the present study, immunohistochemistry for alphaB-crystallin was used as a sensitive method to detect BNs to determine the frequency of BNs in the limbic lobe in AD. At least a few BNs were detected in the limbic lobe of virtually all AD cases, and their density correlated with Braak stage, as well as the density of neurofibrillary tangles and senile plaques in the limbic lobe. The density of BN tended to be greater in AD cases with concurrent AGD than in pure AD. Given the high prevalence of AD in brain banks for neurodegenerative disease and the frequent presence of BNs in these areas with alphaB-crystallin immunohistochemistry, the present findings further indicate that BNs confined to the limbic lobe lack specificity in diagnostic neuropathology.

Published 15 November 2004 in Neuropathol Appl Neurobiol, 30(6): 676-82.
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