Distribution of Cu and Zn in human brain tissue.

Trace elements unquestionably play an important part in relation to the physiology and pathology of the central nervous system. It is well known that in Wilson’s disease copper is accumulated in the brain [ 1,2]. Neurologists are not yet agreed whether or not Hallervorden-Spatz disease, another neurological disease, is accompanied with an increase of iron in some parts of the nervous system [1,3]. For this reason, much work has been done on the determination of trace elements in human brain tissue. Warren [4] and Harrison [5] determined Cu and Zn in different brain areas but there is a marked difference between the results of these two studies. This may be due to different methods of brain pretreatment and also perhaps to the different methods used for determination of the elements. Warren makes use of a calorimetric method while Harrison obtained his results by atomic absorption spectroscopy. Therefore, it seemed interesting to determine Cu and Zn in a large number of brains. In this study, copper and zinc have been determined in 11 different brain areas, obtained at autopsy from cases in which no disorders of the nervous system had been reported. For this purpose, an atomic absorption spectrophotometric method was used which had previously been tested for accuracy and reproductibility by comparison with neutron activation analysis and by colorimetric methods [6] . In order to allow a statistical examination of the results, 13 cases were investigated.